The Middle East has been bracing for an expected response from Israel after Iran launched roughly 180 ballistic missiles on Oct. 1, which the United States helped to fend off. The tit-for-tat strikes and uncertainty about whether Israel might strike strategically important energy and nuclear sites in Iran have raised fears about escalation into an all-out regional war.
Israel’s offensive against Iranian-backed Hamas militants in Gaza has expanded into a ground invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy that has been firing into Israel since the conflict in Gaza started a year ago in solidarity with Hamas.
Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory Israeli strike on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program and urged Israel to consider alternatives to hitting Iran’s oil sector. Such a strike could affect the global oil market and boost pump prices just ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
There is already a deep divide among Democrats over the war, with Vice President Kamala Harris failing to get the usual Democratic endorsement of a political action group of Arab American leaders over the weekend. Former President Donald Trump didn’t get backing from the Arab American PAC either.
The planning for such an assault has been underway for three weeks since Iran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel following Israeli assassinations of leaders of Iran-sponsored militias.
Saturday’s precise drone attack on Netanyahu’s coastal home north of Tel Aviv stunned many Israelis. While neither Netanyahu nor his wife were home and no one was injured, he and his ministers said it was another reason retaliation is warranted.
“There is no doubt that another red line has been crossed here,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israel’s Channel 14 on Saturday night. “We must defeat Iran’s ability to pose a threat.”
Even as Israel weighed its next move against Iran, the head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, traveled to Egypt to discuss the prospects of renewing cease-fire negotiations with Hamas, according to an Israeli official.
It was the first meeting between security chiefs to take place since the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by the Israeli Army last Thursday. No further information was made available on the outcome of the meeting.
US President Joe Biden and his administration have said over the past days that Sinwar’s killing should serve to speed up talks and domestic pressure on Netanyahu has also ramped up to do the same — though hardliners aligned with Netanyahu oppose concessions.
Iran’s Denial
While Iran awaits Israel’s attack — and has vowed to hit back even harder — it made a point of denying involvement in the Saturday drone assault on Netanyahu’s home in the town of Caesarea.
The retaliation has taken longer than many expected, perhaps because of coordination between the US and Israel. Washington is urging Israel to avoid hitting either energy or nuclear installations and has sent Israel sophisticated anti-ballistic missile defense weapons for if and when Iran hits back.
An apparently leaked Pentagon document over the weekend detailed some of Israel’s preparations for such an attack. The leak, the authenticity of which wasn’t verified, appeared on the Telegram account of a pro-Iranian group called Middle East Spectator.
Notes are ‘US assessment of events’
The United States does not publicly acknowledge the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which Israel itself has never admitted to.
The second document described two large Israeli air force exercises including refuelling aircraft and an early warning aircraft.
The Telegram channel accused at first of leaking the documents said the documents initially appeared in a separate private group with 7,000 members.
“We also reiterate that we have no connection to the original source, which we assume to be a whistleblower within the US Department of Defence,” the statement said. In a separate statement, the Telegram group said an acquaintance had received the documents through an anonymous source.
The group claims to be run by independent journalists and that it is not “Iran-affiliated”, but it refers to the Israeli government as the “Zionist regime” and uses Tehran time as a baseline.
The New York Times reported that the documents have been discussed by largely pro-Iran accounts on Telegram since Friday.
The documents do not appear to be a comprehensive assessment of Israeli intentions but an assessment of developments by the US on the dates given.
‘Deeply concerning’
US officials acknowledged the documents are authentic to The New York Times.
The government is said to be investigating who had access to the alleged classified documents.
“The leak is very concerning. There’s some serious allegations being made there, an investigation underway, and I’ll get a briefing on that in a couple of hours,” Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, told CNN’s “State of the Union. “We’re following it closely.”
Two years ago, a large leak of classified material appeared on Discord including details of Ukraine’s order of battle. It was one of the biggest leaks of government secrets in US history.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden said during a visit to Germany that he has a good understanding of how and when Israel plans to respond to Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack.
US officials told CNN that the leak is “deeply concerning”, while privately acknowledging they are authentic to The New York Times.
The US is said to be investigating who had access to the alleged classified documents.
Two years ago, a large leak of classified material appeared on Discord and was made public last year. It was one of the biggest leaks of government secrets in US history.
The officials revealed the release to The Associated Press and a fourth U.S. official said the documents appear to be legitimate.
The documents are attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, and note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran's blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app and first reported by CNN and Axios. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.
The investigation is also examining how the documents were obtained — including whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the U.S. intelligence community or obtained by another method, like a hack — and whether any other intelligence information was compromised, one of the officials said. As part of that investigation, officials are working to determine who had access to the documents before they were posted, the official said.
The U.S. has urged Israel to take advantage of its elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and press for a cease-fire in Gaza, and has likewise urgently cautioned Israel not to further expand military operations in the north in Lebanon and risk a wider regional war. However, Israel's leadership has repeatedly stressed it will not let Iran's missile attack go unanswered.
In a statement, the Pentagon said it was aware of the reports of the documents but did not have further comment.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the leak of the two documents.
The documents first appeared online on Friday via a channel on Telegram, claiming they had been leaked by someone in the U.S. intelligence community, then later the U.S. Defence Department. The information appeared entirely gathered through the use of satellite image analysis.
One of the two documents resembled the style of other material from the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency leaked by Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman who pleaded guilty in March to leaking highly classified military documents about Russia’s war on Ukraine and other national security secrets.
The Telegram channel involved in the leak identifies itself as being based in Tehran, Iran's capital. It previously published memes featuring Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and material in support of Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance,” which includes Middle East militant groups armed by the Islamic Republic.
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