Israel’s Strike On Iran Prolongs An Excruciating Limbo For Palestinians

An attack on Rafah, the last refuge in Gaza, appears imminent — and ongoing Israel-Iran tensions are complicating hopes President Joe Biden will stop it.

As open fighting between two of the Middle East’s best-armed players worsens, more than a million Palestinian lives hang in the balance.

Israel on Thursday attacked Iran, in retaliation for an April 13 attack from Iranian drones and missiles, which was itself a retaliation for the Israeli bombing of an Iranian consulate on April 1.

Iran downplayed the significance of the strike, with state media saying it caused no major damage. The U.S., Israel’s military lifeline, did so too. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters the Biden administration “has not been involved in any offensive operations” and seeks “de-escalation and [to] avoi[d] a larger conflict.”

The state-on-state strikes between Israel and Iran, a prospect that risks sparking an all-out war, are “over,” a regional government source argued to CNN after the latest Israeli strike, saying Iran was unlikely to respond. Multiple national security analysts agreed Israel’s move seemed carefully calibrated, ostensibly in line with the priorities of the U.S. and of anxious neighboring countries.

Still, the two countries indisputably moved closer to head-on conflict through their unprecedented tit-for-tat in recent weeks. “The U.S. will celebrate a small success. But the spiral is still spinning downward: rules are being rewritten on the battlefield,” wrote Emile Hokayem, an analyst at the International institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank, on X.