The United States learned that the Iranian strike on Israel was completed through Swiss channels, a senior administration official said Sunday.
A senior administration official told reporters in a briefing Sunday that the U.S. had a “series of direct communications through the Swiss channel” with Iran leading up to the attack. The official said Iran communicated through the Swiss channel that its strike on Israel was complete as the attacks were ongoing.
“We received a message from the Iranians as this was ongoing, through the Swiss. This was basically suggesting that they were finished after this, but it was still an ongoing attack,” the official told reporters.
Iran launched a drone and missile attack against Israel on Saturday in response to a strike earlier this month that killed members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria. Israel, with the help of the U.S. and other partners, was able to intercept 99 percent of those munitions, the official said.
The official also rejected claims that Iran gave a 72-hour warning about its attack on Israel.
“They did not give a notification, nor do they give any sense of, you know, these will be the targets, so evacuate them. They were clearly intending to destroy and to cause casualties,” the official said.
The attack did not cause any significant damage. The Biden administration has emphasized that it is not seeking a “wider war with Iran” in the wake of the attack as the world waits to see how Israel may respond.
President Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday amid the ongoing attack.
“I’ve just spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu to reaffirm America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel,” Biden said in a statement following the phone call. “I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks — sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel.”