The Times of Israel is liveblogging Thursday’s events as they happen.
EU’s top diplomat condemns ‘terrorist attack’ in call with Iran FM
The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell offered his condolences to Iran after what he described as a “terrorist attack” that killed over 100 people during a call with Iran’s foreign minister.
Twin bomb blasts in southern Iran ripped through a crowd commemorating General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq exactly four years ago.
The attacks remain unclaimed but Iran has blamed Israel and the United States.
Borrell spoke to Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian “to convey condolences following the horrific bombings today in Kerman that killed dozens of civilians”, the EU’s foreign policy chief says on social media.
“I condemned this terrorist attack in the strongest terms and expressed solidarity with the Iranian people,” Borrell adds.
Iran has multiple foes who could be behind the assault, including exile groups, armed organizations and state actors. While Israel has carried out attacks in Iran over its nuclear program, it has conducted targeted assassinations, not mass casualty bombings. Sunni extremist groups, including the Islamic State group, have conducted large-scale attacks in the past that killed civilians in Shiite-majority Iran, though not in relatively peaceful Kerman.
Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional terror activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran’s theocracy.
Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was credited with helping arm, train and lead armed groups across the region, including the Shiite militias in Iraq, fighters in Syria and Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, and Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza.
Blinken to depart for Mideast tomorrow, including stop in Israel
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will depart on Thursday for the Middle East, including a stop in Israel, as the United States continues diplomatic consultations on the Israel-Hamas war, says a senior US official.
Blinken leaves Thursday night “for stops in a number of capitals, including Israel,” the official says. The official provides no further details.
The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, also said US diplomatic envoy Amos Hochstein will also travel to Israel to work to soothe mounting tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
US President Joe Biden spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days as he works to improve access to Gaza for humanitarian aid and gain the release of hostages held by Hamas.
UN Security Council members call for Iran-backed Houthis to stop attacks on shipping
Members of the UN Security Council are calling on Yemen’s Houthis, backed by Iran, to halt their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, saying they threaten regional stability, global freedom of navigation and food supplies.
Addressing the council’s first formal meeting of 2024, members also demanded that the Houthis release Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-operated cargo ship linked to an Israeli company, and its crew, which the group seized on November 19.
The United States believes the situation has reached an “inflection point,” said Chris Lu, a US representative to the United Nations.
“These attacks pose grave implications for maritime security, international shipping and commerce, and they undermine the fragile humanitarian situation in Yemen,” threatening the delivery of aid, Lu said.
“The Security Council should not let this continue. In this regard, and in view of the urgency and the importance of the matter, Japan believes the Security Council should take an appropriate action to deter additional threats by the Houthis and maintain international peace and security,” Japan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Kazuyuki Yamazaki, told the Council.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said earlier they had “targeted” a container ship bound for Israel, a day after the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the group had fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles in the southern Red Sea.
The Houthis, who have launched more than 20 attacks on merchant ships in recent weeks, said they attacked the Malta-flagged freighter, believing it was headed for Israel. The ship was not hit.
The Houthis, who control much of impoverished Yemen and have been fighting a civil war since 2014, say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians because of Israel’s war on Hamas, following the terror group’s shock assault on Israel on October 7.
The Houthi attacks, centered on the Red Sea’s Bab al-Mandeb southern chokepoint, have disrupted shipping in a waterway that carries about 12 percent of global trade.
In response to the attacks, the US set up a multinational naval task force to protect Red Sea shipping.
AFP and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Senior adviser to Iran’s president blames US, Israel for twin blasts that killed 103
A senior adviser to Iran’s president blamed Israel and the United States for twin blasts that killed at least 103 people in the country’s south earlier today.
“Washington says USA and Israel had no role in terrorist attack in Kerman, Iran. Really? A fox smells its own lair first,” says Mohammad Jamshidi, an advisor to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
“Make no mistake. The responsibility for this crime lies with the US and Zionist regimes,” he claims, without proof.
A US official said the attacks today near the grave of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq exactly four years ago, “does look like a terrorist attack, the type of thing we’ve seen ISIS do in the past, and as far as we are aware that is kind of, I think, our going assumption at the moment.”
The ceremony was to commemorate Soleimani who was killed by a US drone in 2020 ordered by then-President Donald Trump.
No one has claimed responsibility for the explosions.
Biden official says US believes Hezbollah not seeking full-scale war with Israel
The US does not think Hezbollah is seeking to fully open up a new front against Israel after the IDF allegedly assassinated Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut yesterday, a senior Biden administration official says.
“I think from everything that we can tell, there is no clear desire from Hezbollah to go to war with Israel, and vice versa,” the senior administration official tells reporters on condition of anonymity.
The senior Biden official doesn’t go as far as to justify the alleged assassination but notes that the US had put a $5 million reward for information on Arouri, adding that senior members of Hamas “must be held accountable.”
The official also echoes an assertion made yesterday by one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesmen who ostensibly sought to convince Hezbollah not to respond by declaring that the assassination specifically targeted Hamas figures and was not an attack on the Iranian proxy or on Lebanon.
Asked about today’s deadly explosions in Iran near the grave of former Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani, the senior administration official says the attack was similar to ones carried out by the Islamic State in the past.
“That’s the going assumption at the moment.”
Explaining the impetus behind a US-led joint statement earlier today against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, the senior US official says that US President Joe Biden wanted to send “a very clear warning to the Houthis that they will bear the full consequences and responsibility for any further attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea.”
“I would not anticipate another warning because this speaks very much for itself,” the official says.
US dispatching senior envoy Hochstein to cool simmering tensions on Lebanon border
Amos Hochstein, US President Joe Biden’s special envoy, is set to arrive in Israel tomorrow, a senior Biden administration official says, as the US intensifies its diplomatic engagement to lower tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli officials plan to tell Hochstein that without a diplomatic agreement in place to shove Hezbollah away from the border, it won’t be able to return residents to northern towns, the Kan public broadcaster reports.
According to a report in Ynet earlier this week, Israel is hoping the agreement will lead to talks on setting an official border between the countries, which have only a ceasefire line and technically remain in a state of war.
Hochstein was heavily involved in shepherding talks that culminated in Israel and Lebanon demarcating a maritime border in 2022.
A senior Biden administration official briefing reporters says he just met with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib and that the US has a “diplomatic effort underway to help resolve some of the tension” between Israel and Hezbollah, without elaborating further.