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00:00 France and the UK are urging Israel not to retaliate against Iran.
00:05 The words of caution from Paris and London echoing those from Washington as the West
00:09 seeks to calm tensions in the Middle East.
00:12 This following Iran's counterattack late Saturday, Tehran launched hundreds of missiles and attack
00:17 drones towards Israel, but virtually all were intercepted.
00:21 Yesterday, the Islamic Republic and Israel traded bobs at the UN Security Council, Israel
00:27 accusing Tehran of being a destabilizer in the region, while Iran said it was acting
00:31 within its rights after its consulate building in Damascus was targeted.
00:36 Karis Garland reports.
00:40 Setting the stage for a verbal showdown, Sunday's emergency Security Council meeting saw Israel
00:46 and Iran exchange blame for instability in the Middle East.
00:51 Israel called the session following Tehran's retaliatory strikes on Saturday night and
00:56 called on the council to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.
01:02 "Iran, the number one global sponsor of terror, has exposed its true face as the destabilizer
01:08 of the region and the world.
01:10 As Iran's mask has fallen, the world's complacency must also fall.
01:17 The mask comes off and the gloves must come on."
01:22 According to the Israeli military, Iran's attack involved more than 300 drones and missiles.
01:28 It said 99 per cent of them were intercepted, though several ballistic missiles caused minor
01:33 damage to an airbase and wounded a seven-year-old Bedouin girl.
01:38 Tehran launched the air assault in response to an airstrike on the Iranian consulate building
01:43 in the Syrian capital on April 1.
01:46 Iran said that attack killed seven Revolutionary Guards, including two generals, and it has
01:52 widely been blamed on Israel.
01:54 At the UN, the Iranian ambassador said his country's actions fell in line with its inherent
01:59 right to self-defence.
02:00 "This concluded action was necessary and proportionate.
02:06 It was precise and only targeted military objectives and carried out carefully to minimize
02:13 the potential for escalation and prevent civilian harm."
02:18 Turkish, Jordanian and Iraqi officials said Iran gave notice days before its attack on
02:24 Israel but US officials said Tehran did not warn Washington and that the attack was intended
02:30 to cause significant damage.
02:32 The US, who along with other countries helped intercept the Iranian missiles and drones,
02:38 said it would explore additional measures to hold Iran accountable.
02:42 The officials said President Joe Biden urged restraint from Israel and warned that Washington
02:47 won't support a counter-attack on Tehran.
02:51 For more on this story we can bring in Tara Khangarlou, journalist and author of The Heartbeat
02:56 of Iran.
02:57 Thank you very much for joining us here on France 24.
03:00 If you heard in that report we had Iran's ambassador to the UN reiterating that Tehran's
03:05 actions from over the weekend are now concluded.
03:09 It seems that Iran is going out of its way to tell the world that it's not going to counter-attack
03:15 or act following its consulate in Damascus being targeted.
03:20 Yes, thank you so much for having me.
03:24 And that is correct.
03:25 I think if we take a step back and look at what happened, Israel attacked Iranian assets
03:32 in Damascus that Iran claims to be their sovereign space, the Iranian consulate, and Iran retaliated.
03:42 And that essentially brought the whole thing full circle and it brought it to a close.
03:47 And that is what Iran is claiming.
03:49 And as you know, the Israeli war cabinet is meeting.
03:53 Officials in Israel are meeting to see what's next.
03:56 But what has been very clear in the last 24 hours is that both the United States, Gulf
04:02 countries, as well as Iran are saying we don't want a full-blown war.
04:11 And as you mentioned, the Iranian official was reiterating that.
04:15 Now, Israel has targeted Iranian military advisers, cut forced commanders in Syria this
04:23 year.
04:24 Why do you think Tehran acted only now?
04:27 That's a very interesting question.
04:28 Again, let's bring your viewers on to give context.
04:33 This happened on April 1st.
04:36 Something else also happened on April 1st.
04:38 And that was the Israeli attack, again, this sort of what they call an accidental attack
04:44 on the aid workers, World Kitchen aid workers.
04:49 And Iran took 13 days to respond.
04:53 And that tells us something, that Iran wanted to be calculated.
04:57 They wanted to make sure that they mitigate any possibility of, again, a full-fledged
05:02 war.
05:04 And also, this comes at a time that reports are confirming that Iran has had some sort
05:11 of a communication with the Americans and sort of others in the region to say, this
05:17 is what we're going to do.
05:18 This is our plan.
05:19 We want to make sure that there are no casualties.
05:21 And, of course, you know, the little girl has been injured, one sort of victim.
05:28 But Iran put a lot of thought into this, according to them, and the fact that this took 13 days.
05:33 There are reports that Iran was dealing with Turkey to get messages across to the United
05:40 States that it, in fact, would be responding, and the response, they gave essentially enough
05:47 notice.
05:48 Yes, yes.
05:50 And that's, you know, what we've been hearing from Iranian officials, that they told the
05:56 West, they told the U.S., and therefore, you know, Israelis would naturally find out about
06:01 it, that this is the plan, we want to make sure that there are no casualties, you know,
06:07 the damage is contained.
06:09 And this was communicated.
06:10 And again, that emphasizes that they are not interested in a full-blown conflict.
06:17 Let me ask you something.
06:18 Will hardliners in Iran be happy, even though pretty much all the 300 drones and missiles
06:25 were struck down?
06:26 Will they be satisfied regardless?
06:30 That's an interesting question, because if you look at the domestic narrative in Iran,
06:35 and the reason the Islamic regime essentially engages in this rogue behavior on the world
06:43 stage—and again, this is just one example, and this altercation is one example between
06:47 this very, very long conflict between Israel and Iran—is they want to appease to their
06:55 domestic audience the supporters of the regime, who, by the way, right now are in minority
07:01 in Iran.
07:02 If you look at this country of 89 million people, the majority of Iranians don't want
07:07 any conflict.
07:08 They don't want any war.
07:09 But yes, Iran had to respond.
07:12 They couldn't just sit back and essentially accept their consulate to be under fire and
07:19 have their diplomats be killed.
07:20 So, yes, they had to respond.
07:22 And the hardliners in Iran, as we've seen on the streets of Tehran, look at this as
07:28 a win, but also want your viewers to make a distinction between the average Iranian,
07:33 ordinary Iranians on the streets, who once again are filled with anxiety and stress over
07:42 a potential war.
07:43 And every time we talk about regional conflict, we have to talk about the domestic challenges
07:50 that everyday folks in Iran are facing.
07:54 And as people inside Iran have told me over the last, again, 24 hours, is that whatever
07:59 happens, its impact is felt by us.
08:04 Because once again, we, France 24, along with other international media outlets, tend to
08:09 show images of people out on the streets of Tehran celebrating these attacks, the missile
08:15 and drone strikes.
08:16 But there is a large chunk of the population that is worried that on Saturday night went
08:20 to pump their cars with gas, went to supermarkets to stock up on food, what have you.
08:28 Talk us through some of the concerns everyday Iranians are facing, which global media outlets
08:33 tend not to show.
08:34 Absolutely.
08:35 I mean, the images that we see on the screens are a small fraction of the Iranian society,
08:41 the pro-regime loyalists.
08:45 Those are the backbone of the supporters of the Islamic regime, and they are not the majority
08:51 of ordinary Iranian people who truly are fed up and disillusioned in their regime, but
08:57 also disillusioned with world power.
09:01 They know that the West doesn't care about their interests, and nor does their government.
09:06 So what we see on the screens are not the majority of the Iranian public who are concerned
09:11 for making ends meet.
09:14 I can't believe that every time we keep saying this, that the Iranian economy is at a break,
09:21 it's a broken economy, but it just gets worse.
09:23 It keeps getting worse.
09:25 And again, in the last 24 hours, the value of riyal plummeted, and the Iranian people
09:33 want none of that.
09:34 As they say in Farsi, the smoke keeps coming back in their eyes.
09:38 And I also want to say that, listen, the people who wage war never pay the price for their
09:44 actions, and it's really the innocent people who are ultimately going to pay the price.
09:50 And that is true in the case of Iran, with a population of 89 million people, of whom
09:56 the majority oppose their regime's behavior, both domestically and on the international
10:02 stage, as well as, I would say, Israel.
10:05 What we're seeing inside Israel is that ordinary Israelis also don't want confrontation within
10:13 the region.
10:15 There's no single person in the Middle East that you talk to who wants another full-scale
10:20 war.
10:21 And that is absolutely true for the ordinary Iranian.
10:26 Tara Khangar-Loob, going to have to leave you with that.
10:28 Thank you very much for joining us on the program today.