UN warns Middle East ‘on the brink’ as Israel vows to exact a price from Iran – live

Live: View of Tel Aviv skyline following Iran drone and missile attacks

Donald Trump has weighed in on Iran’s airstrike against Israel.

“ISRAEL IS UNDER ATTACK,” the former president said on his social media platform, Truth Social. “This should never have been allowed to happen – This would NEVER have happened if I were President!”

Mr Trump’s comments come after the Israeli defense forces announced Iran had launched dozens of drones against Israel.

UK foreign secretary David Cameron has said Iran’s attack on Israel was “an almost total failure” and a “double defeat” for the state.

Speaking to Sky News, Lord Cameron said: “This has been a double defeat for Iran. That attack was an almost total failure, And they revealed to the world that they are the malign influence.”

He added: “Our hope is that there won’t be a retaliatory response and instead the world’s focus should shift to Hamas. They still hold those hostages. They’ve been offered a deal that prisoners can be released from Israeli jails in return for some of those hostages, and there’ll be a pause in the fighting. That’s what needs to happen next”.

US officials have refuted claims made by Iran that it warned Washington before launching missile strikes in a retaliatory attack on Israel.

Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles on Saturday in a retaliatory strike after a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria.

Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Iran gave neighbouring countries and Israel’s ally the US a 72-hour notice that it would launch the strikes.

One senior official in president Joe Biden’s administration denied Mr Amir Abdollahian’s statement, saying Washington did have contact with Iran through Swiss intermediaries but did not get notice 72 hours in advance.

“That is absolutely not true,” the official said, according to Reuters. “They did not give a notification, nor did they give any sense of … ‘these will be the targets, so evacuate them.’”

Tehran sent the US a message only after the strikes began and the intent was to be “highly destructive” said the official, adding that Iran’s claim of a widespread warning may be an attempt to compensate for the lack of any major damage from the attack.

“We received a message from the Iranians as this was ongoing, through the Swiss. This was basically suggesting that they were finished after this, but it was still an ongoing attack. So that was (their) message to us,” the US official said.

Iraq and Jordan both quickly closed their airspace, while the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plane was airborne. The premier soon convened his war cabinet, as the IDF vowed to try and stop the missiles from entering Israeli airspace, which were expected to arrive at around 2am local time.

Israel brought in temporary restrictions closing schools and banning gatherings of more than 1,000 people, and instructed residents to stay close to bomb shelters in the northern part of the occupied Golan Heights, as well as Nevatim, Dimona and Eilat, which housed suspected targets for Iran’s attack.

British and American warplanes were soon reported to have downed several missiles, in an operation which the IDF later said had been conducted with several partners in the region.

Israel claimed on Sunday to have shot down 99 per cent of the missiles, and insisted the Nevatim air base remained operational throughout the night and following day despite having been struck in the attack – alleging that around 350 missiles in total had been fired from Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A seven-year-old girl remained in life-threatening condition with serious head injuries on Sunday, after shrapnel from an intercepted ballistic missile fell directly on her family’s home in a Bedouin town in Israel’s southern Negev region, the Times of Israel reported.

Israel has called for sanctions to be imposed on Iran at the UN Security Council meeting called in response to Tehran’s retaliatory strikes.

Gilad Erdan, Israel’s UN envoy, urged the council during yesterday’s meeting to “impose all possible sanctions on Iran before it’s too late” and “condemn Iran for their terror”.

Iran responded by saying that the nation was exercising its “inherent right to self-defence” as it was left with “no choice”.

Iran’s UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani said his country “not seek escalation or war”.

“The Middle East is on the brink,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said, addressing the Security Council.

“The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict,” he continued. “Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate. Now is the time for maximum restraint.”

“It’s time to step back from the brink,” Mr Guterres later said. “It is vital to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East. Civilians are already bearing the brunt and paying the highest price.”

The US has destroyed dozens of drones and at least six ballistic missiles aimed at Israel that were launched from Iran and Yemen, its military said.

It destroyed over 80 one-way attack drones, including seven UAVs targeted on the ground prior to launch, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said today.

“CENTCOM remains postured to support Israel’s defense against these dangerous actions by Iran. We will continue to work with all our regional partners to increase regional security,” the US military said.