Now Sunday marked 6 months since Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel taking hundreds of people hostage and starting the war in Gaza over a hundred people are reportedly still being held in the enclave and Israel has been reducing its presence in southern Gaza the country's defense minister says troops wrapped up a key phase of the.
Offensive and are preparing for future operations this comes as Iran vows to avenge the deaths of several officials killed by an Israeli attack on the Iranian Embassy in Syria last week for more on this we go to CBS News National Security contributor Samantha vinegrad she's also the former acting assistant secretary for counterterrorism Samantha.
First I want to ask Iran is vowing as we mentioned for retaliation uh for those revolutionary guard officials killed by that attack in Syria now what threat does this pose not just to Israel but to the us as well well in light of Iran's pledge to retaliate we are in an elevated threat environment really globally we know that Iran really has a.
Spiderweb of proxy forces all around the region and also importantly for the Homeland that Iran has been able and has tried to inspire attacks here actually in the United States via what we call homegrown violent extremists so globally around the world we are in a heightened threat environment and that's why I would imagine the US government in.
Coordination with the Israeli government and others is very carefully looking at intelligence to try to pick up on any tips about how when and where Iran is planning to retaliate and from an operational security perspective also boosting security resources for military facilities in the region for embassies and consulates in the region and more.
And then finally also importantly there's a diplomatic track here we know that the White House has said that Iran sent the US government a message and the US government sent a message back to Iran basically saying don't mess with us so I would imagine there's more private Communications probably happening as well Sam we know uh that I mean what are.
The chances that Iran commits one of these to the one of these attacks directly I mean in the past they've used these proxies uh in the Gulf uh and in the Red Sea it is very unlikely that Iran itself will launch one of these attacks the US intelligence Community assess back in March that Iran and Israel both wanted to avoid a fullscale.
Direct confrontation I do not assess that Iran wants to engage in direct conflict with the United States but let's be clear Vlad Iran is attacking us right now via its proxies in the Gulf of aen and in the Red Sea us assets are under uh Iranian proxy attack right now so I would I would assess that Iran will continue to rely on its proxies whether.
It be Hezbollah in Lebanon kab Hezbollah in Iraq or other proxies in Syria to try to retaliate for the Israeli strike in Syria last week now we mentioned earlier that Israel's begun to pull some of its troops out of Southern Gaza now during a phone call last week President Biden told prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that US policy on Gaza would depend on.
Israel taking steps to reduce civilian harm now I want to take a listen here's what the National Security Council coordinator for strategic Communications John Kirby said on Face the Nation on Sunday it's their operation we just talked about them pulling troops out what that means they get to decide how they prosecute operations we get to.
Decide how we're going to react to that and how we're going to administer our own policy with respect to Gaza we make those decisions and the president was clear with the Prime Minister if there's not changes if things don't get better then we're going to have to make changes of our own now is this reduction of troops connected to push back from the.
US and and and what's the tension like between the two leaders right now well the forces that left Southern Israel ostensibly according to John Kirby uh left Southern Israel to recuperate and refit for the next stage of military operations that could be because BB Netanyahu is planning some sort of operation into Rafa but we also know.
That Israeli officials are expected to come to Washington in person to discuss a potential operation in Rafa and the goal here is to convince the Israeli government not to launch a full scale ground offensive there are other operational options for Rafa to try to clear out any Hamas terrorists that remain there and that will be I believe.
What the US government will lay out for the Israelis when they come to town the President telling BB Netanyahu that there may be conditions on us support for Israel going forward I do think is an inflection point in our bilateral relationship and clearly something that BB Netanyahu heard and digested very quickly all right Samantha vinegrad.
Always great to have you for your analysis thank you very much thanks
Let the nations delight in out of it and letthe boys delight in their college yard battle.They delight in to earn it out of their machine.
Borat: Iran has the simply to defend itself. NOTtttttttt.
Smartly she was as soon as coarse!