Iran Says Attack on Nuclear Sites Improbable

People pass by an anti-Israel billboard depicting Iran's missile attack on Israel with a sentence reading in Persian “If you want war, we are the master of war”, at the Enqelab Square, in Tehran, Iran, 07 October 2024. (EPA)
People pass by an anti-Israel billboard depicting Iran's missile attack on Israel with a sentence reading in Persian “If you want war, we are the master of war”, at the Enqelab Square, in Tehran, Iran, 07 October 2024. (EPA)
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Iran Says Attack on Nuclear Sites Improbable

People pass by an anti-Israel billboard depicting Iran's missile attack on Israel with a sentence reading in Persian “If you want war, we are the master of war”, at the Enqelab Square, in Tehran, Iran, 07 October 2024. (EPA)
People pass by an anti-Israel billboard depicting Iran's missile attack on Israel with a sentence reading in Persian “If you want war, we are the master of war”, at the Enqelab Square, in Tehran, Iran, 07 October 2024. (EPA)

The probability of an attack on Iran's nuclear sites remains low but any potential damage would be "quickly compensated", state atomic energy agency spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Wednesday, according to semi-official Nournews.

After Iran's missile attack on Israel on Oct. 1, there has been speculation that Israel could strike Iran's nuclear facilities, as it has long threatened to do.

"We have always taken these threats seriously," Kamalvandi said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel would listen to the United States but would decide its actions according to its own national interest.

The statement was attached to a Washington Post article which said Netanyahu had told President Joe Biden's administration that Israel would strike Iranian military targets, not nuclear or oil targets.

Biden has said he would not support an attack on Iran's nuclear sites and oil markets have been on edge over the prospect of an Israeli strike against Iranian oil fields.

Kamalvandi told Nournews that any attack on Iran's nuclear sites remained improbable and that if this happened, the damage was likely to be minimal and quickly repaired by Iran.

"We have planned in a way that if they commit any stupidity, the damages would be minimal," Kamalvandi said.

The Iranian spokesperson added that the UN nuclear watchdog and the international community should condemn any threat or attack on nuclear sites.



US Officials Who Resigned over Biden’s Gaza Policy Form New PAC

A Palestinian boy looks at destroyed shelters at the site of an Israeli airstrike which hit tents for displaced people two days earlier in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on October 16, 2024. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy looks at destroyed shelters at the site of an Israeli airstrike which hit tents for displaced people two days earlier in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on October 16, 2024. (AFP)
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US Officials Who Resigned over Biden’s Gaza Policy Form New PAC

A Palestinian boy looks at destroyed shelters at the site of an Israeli airstrike which hit tents for displaced people two days earlier in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on October 16, 2024. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy looks at destroyed shelters at the site of an Israeli airstrike which hit tents for displaced people two days earlier in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on October 16, 2024. (AFP)

Two US officials who resigned last year in protest over President Joe Biden's policy on the Gaza war have launched a lobbying organization and a political action committee to advocate for a revamp of Washington's long-standing stance on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.

Josh Paul, a former State Department official and Tariq Habash, who used to work as a policy advisor at the US Department of Education, said the American public is no longer in favor of unconditionally sending US weapons to Israel but that elected officials have lagged behind.

Their PAC, called "A New Policy", would support candidates whose position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict center on aligning US policies with human rights and equality and would ensure US arms transfers to all countries in the Middle East including Israel comply with both US and international law.

Washington's unwavering support for Israel's military operations in Gaza and more recently in Lebanon has emerged as a key reason for why Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly had backed Biden in 2020, may withhold their votes from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.

"American voters are clear: they do not want to be complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe and a majority want an end to the transfer of lethal weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians," Habbash said.

Many Muslims and Arabs in the US have urged Biden to call for a permanent ceasefire. Harris faces Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5 in what polls show to be a tight presidential race.

The US is Israel's largest weapons supplier and has provided it with billions of dollars in military aid since Oct. 7, when Palestinian Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's relentless retaliatory offensive of the densely-populated Gaza Strip, which was home to 2.3 million people, has reduced the enclave to a wasteland, with hundreds of thousands of people repeatedly displaced. More than 42,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.