Leaders Urge Restraint as Israel Considers Retaliation Against Iran

Life largely returned to normal in Israel on Sunday, and there were indications that the military would not seek to immediately retaliate against Iran, even as tensions remained high in the region. Iranian officials also appeared to signal that its operation against Israel was over.

Here’s what else to know:

• Israel’s war cabinet concluded a meeting on Sunday evening without deciding how to respond to Iran’s assault, according to an official briefed on the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks more freely. By nightfall, the military had yet to detail possible options, the official said.

• In public, Israeli ministers appeared divided over how to respond. Benny Gantz, a centrist minister and one of three voting members of the war cabinet, said that Israel should exact a price from Iran, but only “in a way and at a time that suits us.” Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister, then criticized Mr. Gantz for his perceived moderation, arguing that Israel should deter Iran by going “crazy.”

• The Biden administration is advising Israel that it does not necessarily need to fire back at Iran, with U.S. officials saying that Israel had proved its ability to protect itself.

• Iranian officials issued a series of statements that appeared designed to keep tensions from escalating further. Iran’s foreign minister said that Tehran “has no intention of continuing defensive operations, but if necessary it will not hesitate to protect its legitimate interests against any new aggression.”

Israeli military analysts were divided on whether a more direct confrontation with Iran would alter the war in Gaza, now in its sixth month. The next fulcrum in that war could hinge on whether Israel decides to pursue Hamas in the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have fled amid a spiraling humanitarian crisis.

Some analysts argued that the implications for Gaza would depend on whether Israel responded with a major counterattack against Iran. Others contended that Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip would be unaffected.

Shlomo Brom, a retired brigadier general and a former director of the Israeli military’s strategic planning division, said that if Israel responds with substantial force to the Iranian attack, it could spark a multifront war that would compel the Israeli leadership to move its attention away from Gaza.

In the case of a significant regional conflagration, General Brom said, Israel might choose to delay its plans to invade Rafah, which Israeli officials describe as the last Hamas stronghold.

“It’s not comfortable for us to have simultaneous, high-intensity wars in multiple theaters,” General Brom added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to send ground forces into Rafah, despite international pressure to back off the operation. On Sunday, an Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that the Iranian attack would have no effect on the military’s plan to invade Rafah.

A large-scale direct confrontation with Iran could potentially bring the war in Gaza to a close, General Brom said. But for the war to end in such a way, it would require a broader cease-fire that encompassed several parties, including Israel, Iran and the Iranian-backed militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

“There’s an idea that in order to resolve a crisis, the situation first needs to become worse,” he said, explaining that an escalation followed by a comprehensive cease-fire with Iran might incline that country to push its regional proxies to stop fighting with Israel.

While the members of Israel’s war cabinet did not issue a formal statement after meeting on Sunday, a separate Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, indicated that the country would respond to the Iranian assault — although there was considerable uncertainty as to when and how.

Other military experts, however, dismissed the link between the Iranian attack and the war in Gaza.

“There’s no connection at all,” said Amos Gilead, a retired major general who served in Israeli military intelligence.

General Gilead said that Israel’s army had enough resources to fight against Iran and continue to wage war against Hamas in Gaza.

Others analysts made a similar point, arguing that the resources needed to fight Iran were different from those needed in Gaza. Israel needs fighter jets and air defense systems to counter Iran, they said. In contrast, they added, the army mainly requires ground troops, drones, and attack helicopters to fight Hamas in Gaza.

“There’s no real tension between these two things,” said Giora Eiland, a retired major general and former head of Israel’s National Security Council.

Still, General Eiland said that the success of the coalition that repelled the Iranian attack, which included the United States, Britain and Jordan, could inspire Israel to take advantage of the momentum to overcome its declining status internationally by ending the war in Gaza.

Though the United States, Israel’s closest ally, has broadly supported Israel’s decision to go to war in Gaza, it has increasingly signaled its displeasure over the mounting death toll and warned against a major ground assault in Rafah. The support the United States provided Israel on Sunday in shooting down Iranian drones and missiles could give it more leverage over its Israeli counterparts.

While General Eiland said such an outcome could help Israel develop good will in the international community and contribute to reaching a solution to end the war in Gaza and skirmishes with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon, he was doubtful that Mr. Netanyahu would purse such a path.

“He says he wants to achieve ‘total victory’ in Gaza and conquer Rafah, a process that could last two or three months,” he said, referring to the prime minister. “It’s clear Netanyahu has a different mind-set and priorities.”

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

António Guterres, the Secretary General of the U.N., told the Council that it was “time to step back from the brink,” and that its members, as well as the United Nations at large, had the collective responsibility “to actively engage all parties concerned to prevent further escalation.”

The meeting on Sunday was convened at the request of Israel. The Council has not collectively issued a statement condemning Iran’s attack, and it has also not issued a statement condemning Israel’s attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus that killed several senior commanders. All 15 members of the Council must reach a consensus for a statement to be issued and none was reached on both issues.

The Security Council is one of the few venues where adversaries engaged in conflict come face to face and sit in the same chamber. On Sunday, both Israel and Iran’s ambassadors were present and delivered fiery comments about the other’s country, blaming each other for actions they both called terrorism.

Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador, said Iran’s attack had “crossed every red line” and Israel reserved the right to retaliate. Mr. Erdan called for the Council to take severe action against Iran, including “crippling” sanctions and statements of condemnation.

“The fact that Israel’s air defense proved to be superior does not change the brutality of Iran’s attack,” he said.

Iran’s ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, said his country had an “inherent right to self-defense” after Israel’s attack on its diplomatic compound. Mr. Iravani said that Iran “does not seek escalation or war in the region,” but that if its interests, people or national security came under attack it would “respond to any such threat or aggressions vigorously and in accordance with international law.”

The United States and Iran both said that they do not seek war with one another, but that if one attacks the other’s interests, there would be a defensive response.

Robert A. Wood, a U.S. representative to the U.N., told the Security Council that the “U.S. is not seeking escalation, our actions have been defensive in nature,” and said the U.S. goal was to “de-escalate” and then get back to securing an end to the conflict in Gaza. Mr. Wood said the U.S. planned to bring further action on Iran at the Council and called on the Council to unequivocally condemn Iran’s actions.

Any resolution against Iran put forth by the U.S. at the Council would likely be vetoed by Russia and China, two of Iran’s close allies, who sharply criticized Israel for what they said was reckless violation of international law when it attacked Iran’s embassy compound.

“What happened in the night of the 14th of April did not happen in a vacuum,” said Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N.

China’s ambassador, Dai Bing, called on the Council to “exercise maximum calm and restraint” and said the implementation of an immediate cease-fire is the “top priority.”

Israel has said that the embassy compound was a legitimate military target because senior commanders from Iran’s Quds Forces, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, were holding a meeting inside the building.

The circumstances of the deaths could not be confirmed independently, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about whether its forces opened fire on Palestinian civilians trying to cross to northern Gaza.

For months, the Israeli military has barred Palestinians who have been displaced by the war in Gaza from returning to their homes in northern Gaza. It has become a sticking point in negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

It was not clear why some Palestinians believed that Israel would not block them from returning on Sunday. But they were making the journey on a day when Iran had launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel.

More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its assault there in October, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The assault occurred in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people.

On Sunday morning Jamila Ibrahim, 39, said that she began hearing of some Palestinians who left early and managed to get back to the north. She later spoke with friends who were able to return north. But there were very few.

Around 10:30 a.m. she and her three children — who are between 10 and 17 — set out, joining other people on the journey.

She said there were no official notices from the Israel military, which has occupied large parts of Gaza after it launched a ground invasion, that residents would be allowed to return to their homes. It was just based on word of mouth, as well as people seeing others leaving and being encouraged to join the trek home, she said.

“Some people were scared, they didn’t know what fate they were heading to, they didn’t know what would happen,” she said. “Some were happy that they were going to return.”

Most people were on foot — carrying what little food they had or their few belongings in bags and luggage — and some paid large sums of money to go by car, trucks or donkey carts, she said. But they all took the same seaside road, heading north toward an Israeli checkpoint that has cut off southern Gaza from the north.

“There was lots of tension, lots of tension among the people, they were scared they could be shot,” she said.

Those who tried to cross north in the middle of the night — around 4 a.m. — managed to make it to the north, she said, based on her conversation with friends who crossed successfully.

But later that morning, by the time she and other displaced Palestinians tried to follow, Israeli forces opened fire on them, she said.

“Around 12:30 the Israelis started shooting,” she said.

Mazen Al-Harazeen, a first responder in Gaza, said Israeli forces fired weapons and he did not know how many had been killed, but he said, “There was shooting and martyrs.”

Early Sunday morning, Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, or I.D.F., wrote on social media that the rumors that the army was allowing residents to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip were false.

“The I.D.F. will not allow the return of residents,” he added. “For your safety, do not approach the forces operating there.”

Nearly 2 million Gazans have been displaced by the war between Hamas and Israel, now in its sixth month. One of their biggest concerns is when and if they will be allowed to return to their homes, or whether they will be permanently displaced, as previous generations were.

Around 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes in 1947 and 1948 during the wars surrounding Israel’s establishment as a state.

Bilal Shbair contributed reporting.

While Israel suffered little in the way of significant damage overnight, this one family was dealt a devastating blow. Amina al-Hasoni, 7, was clinging to life — the sole serious casualty of the Iranian barrage. And were it not for systemic inequities in Israel, her relatives said, maybe she too could have been spared.

There are roughly 300,000 Arab Bedouins in the Negev desert. About a quarter of them live in villages that are not recognized by Israeli officials. Without state recognition, those communities have long suffered from a lack of planning and basic services like running water, sewers and electricity. And few have access to bomb shelters, despite repeated requests to the state.

The Hasoni family lives in one such community, sharing a hilltop in the Negev village of al-Fur’ah with a plot of disconnected houses. When rocket warning sirens went off on Saturday night, Amina’s uncle Ismail said he felt stuck — there was nowhere to go.

Booms overhead signaled air defenses intercepting missiles before there was a big explosion. Then he heard a woman screaming — his sister — and “I started running,” he said.

Ismail, 38, found his sister outside her house holding Amina, who was bleeding from the head. Her family had decided to flee the rockets, running out the front door. But Amina, who slept in a back room with pink walls covered in painted butterflies, didn’t make it.

A missile fragment ripped through the home’s thin metal roof, shearing a hole with sharp metallic edges. It made impact just in front of the door — which is where Amina was knocked unconscious.

“I think it hit her while she was running away,” Ismail said.

He said he took the injured Amina from his sister and lifted the girl into his own arms. Ismail then tracked down a car that raced her toward the hospital, more than 40 minutes away on a rutted, winding road that fades out in some places, with camels crossing in others.

Only then, with Amina on her way, did he go inside the house, where he said he saw a large, black piece of shrapnel about the size of a pretzel jar. And “there was blood,” he said, a puddle that had turned into a stream across the tile floor, to the front door.

By Sunday afternoon, the orange patterned tiles had been cleaned. None of the dozen or so relatives there could say who had done it, only that “it was bad for the children to see” all the blood. But Ismail hasn’t gone back inside.

“It’s difficult,” he said, his jeans and boots still spattered with blood. Not far from where he sat, a pink Minnie Mouse blanket and a small black-and-white girl’s dress hung on a family clothesline.

“We could have built shelters here,” Ismail added.

He dismissed any suggestions that what happened to Amina was bad luck.

“It’s part of a policy,” he said. “We can’t do anything.”

The missile fragment that tore into Amina’s home was one of more than 150 collected in the area on Sunday by police bomb disposal teams, and the family said officers had taken away the piece that hit their home. The teams combed the desert for hours, searching for debris and carting away huge hunks of twisted metal — efforts repeated across Israel.

The Hasoni home is not far from a military base, Nevatim, that was reportedly a target of the Iranian assault and that Israeli officials said was lightly damaged.

That is little consolation to Amina’s father, Muhammad, who spent the morning at the hospital taking turns at her bedside. He didn’t say much to her, he said, and just repeated her name.

Amina — the youngest of his 14 children — “likes to laugh and have fun all the time,” said Muhammad, 49. She’s a good student with a “strong personality,” he added, who doesn’t always listen to instructions. And she loves to draw.

He called Iran’s actions “inhumane.”

“May God demolish them,” he said, without hesitation.

Iran’s ambassador to the U.N., Amir Saeid Iravani, addressed the Council after his Israeli counterpart and defended his country’s actions as the “inherent right to self-defense” in response to the attack on its diplomatic compound in Syria two weeks ago.

Iravani said Iran “does not seek escalation or war in the region” and has “no intention” of engaging in conflict with the United States, but warned that it would respond proportionately if Israel or the U.S. military were to attack Iran or its interests.

The joint declaration from the leaders of G7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, as well as the European Union — demanded that “Iran and its proxies cease their attacks.” The leaders said they were ready “to take further measures now and in response to further destabilizing initiatives.”

Hoping to head off Israel from further escalating the conflict, President Biden privately advised Israel against firing back on Iran, U.S. officials said on Sunday. It was not yet clear how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his government would respond.

Leaders of the European Union have publicly urged restraint from both countries as they, too, condemned Iran’s actions. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, called the attack “blatant and unjustifiable,” adding that “all actors must now refrain from further escalation.”

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, said that the condemnation from G7 leaders was unanimous and that “all parties must exercise restraint.”

“Ending the crisis in Gaza as soon as possible, notably through an immediate cease-fire, will make a difference,” Mr. Michel added.

Iranians living inside the country said in interviews that they were worried the confrontation with Israel would spiral out of control and hoped both sides would avoid escalating the conflict.

Soheil, a 37-year-old engineer in Isfahan who, like several other Iranians, asked that his last name not be used for fear of retribution, said all he and his colleagues could talk about at work on Sunday was the prospect of a broader conflict.

“I’m afraid of war,” he said. “It will have a great impact on our daily lives, especially on the economy and the price of dollar, and the anxiety will affect our mental health.”

Since a strike two weeks ago on the Iranian Embassy complex in Syria that killed three top military commanders, Iran’s currency, the rial, has fallen sharply against the U.S. dollar, shrinking purchasing power as Iran’s leaders vowed to respond.

Nafiseh, a 36-year-old high school teacher in Tehran, said that many of her students did not attend school on Sunday because parents were worried about counterattacks from Israel. “It’s all everyone is talking about, from teenagers to teachers and family members, it’s all about the war and attacks,” she said.

Supporters of the government hailed the attacks as Iran’s showcasing its military might to defend itself on Saturday, with several hundred gathering in Tehran’s Palestine Square to celebrate with fireworks and chants of “Death to Israel.” A large mural on the square depicted Iranian missiles with a message written in Farsi and Hebrew that read, “Next time the slap will be harder.” On Sunday night, a crowd formed again in the square, carrying signs and chanting anti-Israel slogans.

Others took to social media to say they would fight for their country unconditionally if Iran were to go to war.

“When a foreign enemy is involved, honor means standing with our country even at the cost of our lives,” Reza Rashidpour, a civil engineer, wrote on social media. “Long live Iran, long live soldiers of Iran.”

But critics of the government denounced the attacks, seeing them as a misadventure that risks harming ordinary Iranians.

Many Iranians oppose government policies that include funding, arming and training groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group that has increasingly traded fire with Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks that set off the current fighting in Gaza. In protests against the government over the past few years a recurring chant has been, “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, my life for Iran.”

Ali, a 53-year-old veteran of the Iran-Iraq war who lives in Kerman, said the existence of the Islamic Republic depends on “crisis.”

“Now they are exploiting the war and the crisis to survive,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council has begun its emergency meeting to address Iran’s attacks on Israel. “The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating, full-scale conflict,” the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, said in opening remarks. “Now is the time to defuse and deescalate. Now is the time for maximum restraint.”

For the Security Council to issue any statement condemning Iran’s actions all of its 15 members would have to agree — a prospect that appears unlikely, given its recent lack of consensus over issuing condemnation statements on Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks and the attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Syria, which prompted Iran’s strikes.

In areas of Jerusalem with a mostly Jewish population, many crowded into public bomb shelters, some wearing pajamas and lugging sleeping bags.

“There were more people there than usual,” said Zev Palatnik, 33, who spent some of the night in his building’s bomb shelter alongside his neighbors. “There’s a sense that the rockets from Iran are more sophisticated than the ones from Gaza,” he said, adding that there was a higher level of anxiety as a result.

But on Sunday, a relatively steady amount of foot traffic flowed in downtown Jerusalem as Israelis returned to work. Ron Cohen, a 37-year-old engineer, said he had hoped that the Israeli government would immediately strike back at Iran, but he did not expect a significant Israeli response.

“Not much, maybe a few small things,” he said. “Our government knows how to defend, but not how to attack.”

For the Israelis among the tens of thousands forced to flee communities along the borders with Gaza and Lebanon, the assault compounded six exhausting months of war. Many expressed uncertainty over the best way for the government to respond.

Gidi Lapid, who left his home in Metula, near the border with Lebanon, with his family at the beginning of the war, said Israel might be able to show strength through restrained action.

But at the same time, Iranians “should be the ones in existential dread, in bomb shelters, stocking up on food and water,” Mr. Lapid said by phone from Eliav, a small town near Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem. “Not our peace-seeking nation.”

U.S. funding for both Israel and Ukraine has languished in Congress; Mr. Johnson initially refused to take up a $95 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan passed by the Senate, and the Senate refused to take up a House Republican proposal that conditioned aid to Israel on domestic spending cuts.

In recent weeks, Mr. Johnson has repeatedly vowed to ensure that the House moves to assist Ukraine. He has been searching for a way to structure a foreign aid package that could secure a critical mass of support amid stiff Republican resistance to sending aid to Kyiv and mounting opposition among Democrats to unfettered military aid for Israel.

But the attacks from Iran have ratcheted up the pressure on Mr. Johnson to bring some kind of package to the floor this week, potentially forcing him to make a decision he has been agonizing over for weeks.

He left it unclear on Sunday whether the legislation he said the House would advance this week would also include aid for Ukraine.

Mr. Johnson said he believed that some proposals around Ukraine aid enjoyed broad support among House Republicans. He noted that he met with former President Donald J. Trump on Friday at his estate in Florida and that Mr. Trump had been supportive of conditioning the aid as a loan.

“I think these are ideas that I think can get consensus, and that’s what we’ve been working through,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’ll send our package. We’ll put something together and send it to the Senate and get these obligations completed.”

Before the attacks in Israel over the weekend, Mr. Johnson had privately floated bringing up the $95 billion spending package for Ukraine and Israel passed by the Senate in February — and moving it through the House in tandem with a second bill containing policies endorsed by the conservative wing of his party. That plan envisioned two consecutive votes — one on the Senate-passed bill and another on a package of sweeteners geared toward appeasing Republicans who otherwise would be infuriated by Mr. Johnson’s decision to push through a bipartisan aid package for Ukraine.

Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Sunday that the two conflicts were tied together, and that he hoped they would be addressed together. “What happened in Israel last night happens in Ukraine every night,” he said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

Mr. McCaul said that he had previously secured a “commitment” from Mr. Johnson that a broad national security bill would be brought to the House floor for a vote, but that the timing was unclear.

“My preference,” he said, “is this week.”

Minho Kim contributed reporting.

With #G7 leaders, we unanimously condemned Iran’s unprecedented attack against Israel.

All parties must exercise restraint. We will continue all our efforts to work towards de-escalation. Ending the crisis in Gaza as soon as possible, notably through an immediate ceasefire, will… pic.twitter.com/BIcrwDWxyV

— Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) April 14, 2024

His opponents are loath to give him any credit, reserving their praise for the air force.

“Like everything in Israel in recent years, the story is split into two narratives,” said Mazal Mualem, an Israeli political commentator for Al-Monitor, a Middle East news site, and the author of a recent biography of the Israeli leader.

“The division and polarization in Israeli society prevents people from seeing the full picture,” Ms. Mualem added.

Iran’s barrage on Sunday, launched in response to an Israeli attack on an Iranian Embassy building this month in Damascus that killed several high-ranking commanders in Iran’s armed forces, came at a perilous time for Mr. Netanyahu.

At home, he is an unpopular leader whom many hold responsible for his government’s policy and intelligence failures that led to the deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, which prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza. Abroad, he is the focus of international censure over Israel’s prosecution of that war, which has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans.

How he ultimately emerges from this episode may depend on what happens next.

Mr. Netanyahu now must make a choice. Will he respond to Iran with a forceful counterattack and potentially entangle Israel and other countries in a broader war? Or will he absorb the attack, which gravely injured one 7-year-old girl but otherwise did limited damage, and defer to the coalition that helped defend Israel in the interests of regional stability?

Israel’s allies have been urging restraint.

“The question is whether Israel is going to retaliate immediately, or surprise the Iranians in one way or another,” said Efraim Halevy, who served as director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, during the latter part of Mr. Netanyahu’s first term in the 1990s.

No Israeli leader has warned about Iran so consistently as Mr. Netanyahu or, for that matter, has spent so long in office. Israel’s longest serving prime minister, he has been in power for about 17 years overall.

Since his first year in office in 1996, Mr. Netanyahu warned that a nuclear Iran would be catastrophic and that time was running out. For the nearly three decades since, he has been sounding the same alarm.

Iran maintains a network of proxy militias across the region, including in Gaza, which the government funds and supplies with weapons. Some of those militias in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon have battled with Israel, creating distractions for the Israeli government and military amid the war with Hamas.

But perhaps more troubling, experts say, is that Iran is closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Mr. Netanyahu’s backers still credit him with having put Iran’s nuclear program on the world agenda then, and they praise him now for investing in the mighty, multilayered air defense system that allowed Israel and its allies, including the United States, to intercept the vast majority of Iranian drones and missiles this weekend before they reached Israel.

Sometimes resorting to gimmicks and antics to draw attention to Iran’s nuclear progress, Mr. Netanyahu has in the past made opposing Iran a key part of his global diplomacy. Once, at the United Nations General Assembly he held up a cartoonish drawing of a bomb marked with red lines depicting enrichment levels. Another time, at the Munich Security Conference, he waved around a piece of wreckage from what he said was an Iranian drone sent from Syria and shot down by Israel.

“Everywhere he went he was talking about it,” recalled Jeremy Issacharoff, a former Israeli ambassador to Germany and for years the Ministry of Foreign Affairs point man coordinating diplomatic efforts on regional security and the Iranian threat.

At times, Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign against Iran has severely strained Israel’s relations with American presidents, though bipartisan U.S. support for Israel has long been considered a strategic asset.

Around 2012, Mr. Netanyahu infuriated the Obama administration by pushing hard for President Barack Obama to set clear “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear progress that would prompt the United States to undertake a military strike. Before that, the Israeli prime minister was making plans for a unilateral Israeli strike in the face of tough opposition from Washington and public criticism from a string of former Israeli security chiefs. It was never clear if Mr. Netanyahu was bluffing, and the prospect of an imminent strike receded.

He further challenged Mr. Obama in 2015 with an impassioned speech to a joint meeting of Congress denouncing what he called a “bad deal” being negotiated by the United States and other world powers with Iran to curb its nuclear program.

When President Donald J. Trump came to power, Mr. Netanyahu encouraged him to withdraw from the agreement — a move that many Israeli experts have called a dire mistake and a failure of Mr. Netanyahu’s Iran policy.

“Since then, there have been no constraints on the program,” Mr. Issacharoff said, adding, “It has never been more advanced.”

But it was also under Mr. Netanyahu’s watch that Israel forged diplomatic relations with more Arab states that are considered part of the moderate, anti-Iranian axis, including the United Arab Emirates.

Regardless of what comes next, Ms. Mualem, the Netanyahu biographer, said, “Bibi is still in the game,” referring to him by his nickname. “He’s a central player, and it isn’t over, diplomatically or politically. And he plays a long game.”

“Finally some calmness after six months of buzzing and noises!” Yousef Mema, a Gazan activist with a significant social media following, wrote on Instagram.

Another influencer, Mahmoud Shurrab, recorded himself walking in the middle of the street, the skies overhead quiet. “I can’t believe it, silence,” he said in a video posted on Instagram.

The calm did not last. The Israeli military said on Sunday that its forces were pressing on with a raid in the central Gaza Strip for the fourth day, where they “eliminated dozens of terrorists in face-to-face battles and with air support.” And Wafa, the Palestinian Authority news agency, reported that several Palestinians had been killed in a strike on a home in Nuseirat in central Gaza, and that at least eight others were wounded in a strike on three homes in Beit Hanoun, a city in the northeast of the strip.

Some Palestinians worried that an escalation between Israel and Iran would distract from the dire situation in the Gaza Strip, potentially diverting international attention from the Israeli bombardment and looming famine there.

“I think it is not at all in the Palestinians’ side or favor to have a new front open with Israel,” said Amer Nasser, 64. “This will distract the people around the world from seeing what is happening in Gaza,” he added.

For many, the Iranian attack was unexpected.

Fayez al-Samman, a 76-year-old car trader from Gaza City who is sheltering in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, said he spent the night listening to the news on the radio. “It was a surprise for me when I heard the missiles were targeting Israeli sites,” he said.

Osama al-Hato, 53, another man from Gaza City staying in Deir al-Balah, said he was happy that Iran had targeted Israel. “However, I did not follow the news nor expect the Iranian reaction to this extent,” he added.

Aymen Zidan, 57, a wholesale vegetable supplier from Deir al-Balah, said he had had little expectation that Iran would target Israel, although he believed Iran’s attack was for its own interests, not for the sake of Palestinians in Gaza like him.

Even so, he said, he felt “relieved that there is a country that said no to Israel.”

Raja Abdulrahim contributed reporting from New York.