Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin has privately reassured the United States he is willing to opt for a more limited counterstrike against Iran, targeting military infrastructure not nuclear facilities.
He reportedly agreed that the impending Israeli military response against Iran will see strikes on Iranian military infrastructure rather than nuclear or oil facilities.
According to White House sources, speaking to the Washington Post, during Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu’s phone call last week, their first in nearly two months, the Israeli PM said he planned to only target military infrastructure in Iran.
The sources also suggested that Israeli retaliatory action would be ‘calibrated’ to avoid the perception of political interference in the US elections in three weeks’ time.
Neither the Israeli PM’s office nor The White House initially responded to a request for a comment.
In the brief statement, the Israeli PM’s office responded: “We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest.”
Mr Biden is still said to be furious with the Israeli Prime Minister after reportedly calling him a ‘bad guy’, a ‘****ing liar’ and a ‘son of a *****’ when he sent Israeli troops into Rafah against US wishes earlier this year.
But it remains to be seen if Mr Netanyahu will keep his word over the nature of Israel’s military response to the Iranian attack in the coming days or weeks.
Meanwhile, an angry stalemate between the United Nations and Israel looked set to boil over yesterday as the UN warned that its peacekeepers in southern Lebanon will stay in their positions – despite repeated demands by Jerusalem that they should move out of the way of its forces there.
As tensions rise following Israeli military action leading to the injuries of some UN personnel in the area, the head of peacekeeping operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix told journalists in New York that the decision to keep the Unifil force in place had the full backing of both the UN Security Council and the member states contributing troops to the force.
He stressed that it was essential that the famous blue helmets stayed in place, to carry out the mandate they were given by the UN Security Council and to assist the civilian population.
But this flew in the face of the wishes of the Israeli Government.
Mr Netanyahu again bluntly warned the UN to move from its bases in southern Lebanon, which he said were providing a human shield to Hezbollah fighters.
Israel argued that the UN has failed to stop Hezbollah from building tunnels and positioning weapons like rockets and missiles near the border, in violation of the agreement which ended the last war there 18 years ago.
The UN, in turn, hit back arguing that its mission was to support the parties to the conflict, not to enforce the agreement.
It further accused Israel of deliberately targeting its bases, with five peacekeepers injured in the past week, an accusation rejected by Mr Netanyahu.
He said his military would do its utmost to prevent such incidents, but that UN peacekeepers needed to get out of harm’s way.
The furious face off came after Lebanon said at least 21 people were killed and eight others injured in a rare Israeli air strike in the north of the country.
The strike hit a residential building in Aitou, a mainly Christian village far from the areas where Israel has carried out strikes targeting Hezbollah. Israel has not commented.
Mr Netanyahu vowed to “continue to strike Hezbollah without mercy everywhere in Lebanon – including Beirut”.
“Everything is according to operational considerations. We have proven this recently and we will continue to prove it in the coming days as well,” he added.
He was speaking during a visit to a military base in northern Israel where a drone launched by the Iran-backed group killed four Israeli soldiers and wounded dozens on Sunday night.
The military said it was investigating how the drone evaded its sophisticated air defence systems and hit the Golani Brigade training facility near the town of Binyamina.
It was one of Hezbollah’s deadliest attacks on Israel in over a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah said it was a response to deadly Israeli attacks in Lebanon, which the country’s health ministry says has killed almost 1,700 people over the past month.