Germany warns of regional war amid heightened Israel-Iran tensions

BERLIN

Amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday warned of a regional war during a phone conversation with her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

“All actors in the region are called upon to act responsibly and exercise restraint. With this in mind, I spoke to my Iranian counterpart today,” Baerbock said at a news conference with her Chilean colleague Alberto van Klaveren.

“These days, all diplomatic telephone lines are running hot to prevent regional escalation in the Middle East. Nobody can add any more fuel to the fire now. Really no one can have an interest in a conflagration with completely unforeseeable consequences,” she added.

Israel’s foreign minister threatened Wednesday that his country’s military would strike Iran directly if Tehran launched an attack from its territory against Israel.

His remarks came in the wake of heightened tensions between the rival powers in the aftermath of the killings of Iranian generals in a bombing at the Iranian Consulate in Syria earlier this month.

“If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran,” Israel Katz said in a post on X in both Farsi and Hebrew.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to retaliate against the Jewish state over the attack on its consulate in Damascus.

Tehran holds Israel responsible for the strike that leveled the building, killing 12 people. Israel has not acknowledged its involvement, though it has been awaiting an Iranian response to the attack.

The strike killed Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard who led the group’s elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016. The 11 others who died included six Revolutionary Guard members, four Syrians and a Hezbollah member.