Israel warns that revenge strike on Iran will be 'lethal, precise and surprising'

Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for the first time in weeks last night, amid expectations of an imminent Israeli strike on Iran, which Yoav Gallant warned would be “lethal, precise and surprising.”

- Bethan McKernan Jerusalem Julian Borger

Netanyahu's defence minister issued the warning in a video message on Israeli media last night, broadcast after he had postponed a scheduled trip to Washington.

Gallant said that the Iranian missile attack on Israel on 1 October had been a failure but would be avenged.

“Whoever attacks us will be hurt and will pay a price. Our attack will be deadly, precise and above all surprising, they will not understand what happened and how it happened, they will see the results,” he said.

Gallant's message was broadcast a few hours after the conversation between Netanyahu and Biden, their first in seven weeks, which was joined by the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, whose presidential campaign could be upset by the widening hostilities in the Middle East and any consequent spike in oil prices. It also emerged yesterday that Netanyahu had spoken last week to Harris’s opponent, Donald Trump.

The timing and scope of the Israeli retaliation is still unclear, and a miscalculation could propel Iran and Israel into a full-scale war, which neither side says it wants. The US, Israel's staunch ally, is wary of being drawn into the fighting, and of oil price shocks.