An aircraft of Middle East Airlines (MEA), Lebanon’s flag carrier, takes off from Beirut International Airport on October 6, 2024 amidst smoke rising from nearby sites targeted overnight by Israeli air strikes in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The United States warned Israel on Monday (October 7, 2024) not to attack Beirut airport or the roads leading to it, as the Israeli Army carried out intensive strikes against Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs.

“We think it’s very important that not only the airport be open, but that the roads to the airport be open, so that American citizens who want to leave can get out, but also citizens of other countries,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

The Israeli air force carried out a strike on Monday in the southern suburbs of Beirut, near the international airport, a security source told AFP.

For the past week, the United States has been chartering near-daily flights to get its citizens and their families out of the country as the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah escalates.

Some 900 people have taken the flights so far, Miller said, though he added that none of them were fully booked.

The U.S. is also reserving seats on commercial flights that continue to operate.

Some 8,500 Americans have contacted the State Department to inquire about departure conditions, but this does not mean they all wish to leave, he added.

The spokesman also refused to comment on Israeli strikes in Lebanon — and Beirut in particular — and whether or not they respected international law.

“I don’t have a characterization of them one way or the other,” he said.

“But of course, we expect them to target Hezbollah in a way that complies with international humanitarian law and minimizes civilian casualties.”

The United States has at times criticized the number of people killed by Israel in Gaza — more than 41,000 over the past year — and President Joe Biden has called some of Israel’s actions there “over the top.”

But, so far, Washington hasn’t changed its policy of backing Israel in its expanding military operations.

Israel launched a vast military campaign in response to a bloody attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023.

In recent weeks it has expanded its war from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is based, to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The U.S. supports Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah, Miller said.

But, he added, “we are very cognizant of the many times in the past where Israel has gone in on what looked like limited operations and has stayed for months or for years.

“And ultimately, that’s not the outcome that we want to see.”

Only a ceasefire deal in Gaza stemming from hoped-for talks this week would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil, three senior Iranian officials said.

Iran has vowed a severe response to Haniyeh’s killing, which took place as he visited Tehran late last month and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement. The U.S. Navy has deployed warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli defences.

One of the sources, a senior Iranian security official, said Iran, along with allies such as Hezbollah, would launch a direct attack if the Gaza talks fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations. The sources did not say how long Iran would allow for talks to progress before responding.

With an increased risk of a broader Middle East war after the killings of Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, Iran has been involved in intense dialogue with Western countries and the United States in recent days on ways to calibrate retaliation, said the sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

In comments published on Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey confirmed Washington was asking allies to help convince Iran to de-escalate tensions. Three regional government sources described conversations with Tehran to avoid escalation ahead of the Gaza ceasefire talks, due to begin on Thursday in either Egypt or Qatar.

“We hope our response will be timed and executed in a way that does not harm a potential ceasefire,” Iran’s mission to the U.N. said on Friday in a statement. Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said calls to exercise restraint “contradict principles of international law.”

Iran’s foreign ministry and its Revolutionary Guards Corps did not immediately respond to questions. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the U.S. State Department did not respond to questions.

Looming conflict

“Something could happen as soon as this week by Iran and its proxies… That is a U.S. assessment as well as an Israel assessment,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday.

“If something does happen this week, the timing of it could certainly well have an impact on these talks we want to do on Thursday,” he added. At the weekend, Hamas cast doubt on whether talks would go ahead. Israel and Hamas have held several rounds of talks in recent months without agreeing a final ceasefire.

In Israel, many observers believe a response is imminent after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would “harshly punish” Israel for the strike in Tehran.

Iran’s regional policy is set by the elite Revolutionary Guards, who answer only to Khamenei, the country’s top authority. Iran’s relatively moderate new president Masoud Pezeshkian has repeatedly reaffirmed Iran’s anti-Israel stance and its support for resistance movements across the region since taking office last month.

Meir Litva, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, said he thought Iran would put its needs before helping its ally Hamas but that Iran also wanted to avoid a full-scale war.

“The Iranians never subordinated their strategy and policies to the needs of their proxies or protégées,” Mr. Litva said. “An attack is likely and almost inevitable but I don’t know the scale and the timing.”

Iran-based analyst Saeed Laylaz said the Islamic Republic’s leaders were now keen to work towards a ceasefire in Gaza, “to obtain incentives, avoid an all-out war and strengthen its position in the region.”

Mr. Laylaz said Iran had not previously been involved in the Gaza peace process but was now ready to play “a key role.”

Iran, two of the sources said, was considering sending a representative to the ceasefire talks, in what would be a first since the war started in Gaza.

The representative would not directly attend the meetings but would engage in behind-the-scenes discussions “to maintain a line of diplomatic communication” with the United States while negotiations proceed. Officials in Washington, Qatar and Egypt did not immediately respond to questions about whether Iran would play an indirect role in talks.

Two senior sources close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah said Tehran would give the negotiations a chance but would not give up its intentions to retaliate.

A ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a smaller “symbolic” response, one of the sources said.

Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry.

April missiles

Iran has not publicly indicated what would be the target of an eventual response to the Haniyeh assassination.

On April 13, two weeks after two Iranian generals were killed in a strike on Tehran’s embassy in Syria, Iran unleashed a barrage of hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles towards Israel, damaging two airbases. Almost all of the weapons were shot down before they reached their targets.

“Iran wants its response to be much more effective than the April 13 attack,” said Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East policy.”

Nadimi said such a response would require “a lot of preparation and coordination” especially if it involved Iran’s network of allied armed groups opposing Israel and the United States across the Middle East, with Hezbollah the senior member of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” that along with Iraqi militias and Yemen’s Houthis have harried Israel since Oct. 7.

Two of the Iranian sources said Iran would support Hezbollah and other allies if they launched their own responses to the killing of Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, who died in a strike in Beirut the day before Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.

The sources did not specify what form such support could take.