what to remember from Tuesday April 16

Three days after Iran’s attack on Israel, the two countries continued to exchange threats, amid strong international concerns.

Israel vowed on Tuesday April 16 to make Iran pay the price for its unprecedented attack on Israeli territory, despite international calls for restraint in a region already shaken by the war in the Gaza Strip. Franceinfo summarizes what to remember from this day.

Iran will “not emerge unscathed” from its attack, warns Israeli army

Twelve days after a deadly strike against its consulate in Damascus on April 1, blamed on Israel, Iran launched a drone and missile attack against Israeli territory on Saturday evening, the first ever carried out from Iranian soil. “We cannot stand idly by in the face of such aggression, Iran will not emerge unscathed,” Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Tuesday during a press visit to a base in southern Israel. “Firing 110 missiles directly at Israel will not go unpunished. We will respond when, where and how we choose”he added.

At the same time, in Tehran, President Ebrahim Raïssi warned on Tuesday that “the slightest action” of Israel against “Iran’s interests” would cause “a severe, widespread and painful response” from his country. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke on the phone with his Iranian counterpart, the official Xinhua news agency reported. He specifies that Tehran has once again expressed its “will to restrain” After his unprecedented attack against Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu accused of being “the main person responsible for the tension” between Iran and Israel

Taking the opposite view from Westerners who condemned the Iranian attack, the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for being “the main responsible” to blame for Iran’s attack on Israel. “The main person responsible for the tension that gripped our hearts on the evening of April 13 is Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty administration”affirmed the Turkish head of state, during a televised intervention. “Israel’s targeting of the Iranian embassy in Damascus in violation of international law and the Vienna Convention was the final straw.”said the Turkish president, one of the most virulent critics of Israel, whom he described as “terrorist state”.

EU and US consider expanding sanctions on Iran

The European Union is considering broadening the scope of its sanctions already in place against Iran, the head of EU diplomacy said on Tuesday. “The idea is to expand the existing (sanctions) regime against Iranian drones“, declared Josep Borrell after an extraordinary meeting, by videoconference, of EU foreign ministers.

The idea is supported in particular by France and Germany. The current sanctions regime, which currently only concerns Iran, could also be extended to Tehran’s allies in the Middle East, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the head of diplomacy further explained. European.

“I expect that we will take additional sanctions against Iran in the coming days,” declared, for her part, the American Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, during a press conference organized on the first day of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. Since Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House in January 2021, “We have targeted more than 500 individuals and entities linked to terrorism and the financing of terrorism by the Iranian regime” and the various movements linked to it in the region, said Janet Yellen.

Vladimir Putin calls for “restraint” in interview with Iranian president

An escalation would have “catastrophic consequences”, warned Vladimir Putin. The Russian president called on Israel and Iran to “detention”, during an interview with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raïssi on Tuesday. Vladimir Putin warned against “catastrophic consequences for the entire region” of any further escalation, the Kremlin said, after the meeting between the two leaders.

Explosive drones launched by Hezbollah on Israeli positions

Iran, which calls for the destruction of Israel, has until now refrained from attacking it head-on and confronts it via its allies such as the Lebanese Hezbollah. On Tuesday, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for an explosive drone attack launched from Lebanon on Israeli positions in the north. Hezbollah then announced the death of three of its members in Israeli strikes.