Tit-for-tat violence must stop, says UN chief

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel, telling the Security Council the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop.”

“Time is running out,” he said. The 15-member council met after Israel killed the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and began a ground assault against the Iran-backed militant group and Iran attacked Israel in a strike that raised fears of a wider war in West Asia.

More sanctions on iran: biden

• US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that there would be more sanctions imposed on Iran, and that he would speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon
• He did not support an attack on Iran's nuclear sites following strikes on Israel, he added

Blasts near Israeli embassy in Denmark

• Three young Swedes were arrested Wednesday in connection with two predawn explosions that occurred in the vicinity of the Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen, prompting a nearby Jewish school to close for the day
• The police said no one was injured

Meanwhile, the Italian governmen, in a statement, said leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) democracies believed a diplomatic solution to the conflicts in the West Asia “is still possible”. The statement was released after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni chaired a leaders’ call to discuss the crisis. “It was reiterated that a region-wide conflict is in no one’s interest and that a diplomatic solution is still possible,” the statement said.

The leaders also reiterated their “firm condemnation” of Iran’s attack on Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed the presence of American and European nations in West Asia in his first remarks since Tehran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel.

Khamenei said the presence of these nations was a source of “conflicts, wars, concerns and enmities”.

“Regional nations can manage themselves and ... they will live together in peace,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Tel Aviv bars Guterres from entering Israel

Israel’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that he was barring Guterres from entering the country because he had not “unequivocally” condemned Iran’s missile attack on Israel.