Israel's Gallant vows 'lethal, precise, surprising' reply to Iranian attack

Israel's response to an Iranian missile attack will be "lethal, precise and surprising," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video statement on Wednesday.

"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," Gallant added.

Earlier on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden together with Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in a phone call in a bid to form a united front on Israel's likely counterattack to the Oct. 1 missile barrage

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the call lasted around 30 minutes but provided no details beyond calling the discussion “productive, it was direct.”

Asked in an interview with CNN about the discussion, Harris declined to elaborate, saying the call was "classified".

A photograph released by Netanyahu's office showed the prime minister along with top military and government aides participating.

A visit to Washington DC planned for the previous day by Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was cancelled without explanation, underscoring rifts at home and abroad over Netanyahu's war aims.

Both Gallant and Biden have feuded with Netanyahu about Israel's conduct of a year-long military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack by Palestinian militants on Israel on October 7.

The US president telephoned Israel's President Isaac Herzog rather than Netanyahu to convey his condolences on the one-year anniversary of the assault which killed around 1,100 Israelis, most of them civilians.

The two leaders have not spoken since August and their lack of a working relationship has complicated efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, and after Iran's Oct. 1 attack on Israel with nearly 200 missiles, about how Israel should respond.

The United States, Western and Arab powers helped repel the onslaught, which killed a lone Palestinian man and was dismissed as a failure by the United States.

A previous missile salvo by Iran on Israel in April only provoked a muted Israeli response after the United States urged its ally not to escalate tensions further.

Biden has said Israel should not target Iran's nuclear sites and publicly counseled against hitting its oil facilities, though he maintained that the two allies were in constant coordination about the appropriate retaliation.

Harris, the Democratic candidate to succeed Biden, on Tuesday described Iran and the United States' main threat, while her opponent former President Donald Trump criticized Biden for not blessing an attack on nuclear sites.