are down-playing this. they are not at this point pointing the finger at israel. they are not at this point promising revenge. we are expecting to hear the iranians speaking fairly shortly. this is preplanned speech. it s not specifically in response to this strike, so we ll be closely monitoring that. in terms of israel, they are not officially claiming responsibility one way or another there are no plans of address from netanyahu and no official comment from the israeli government and israeli military. and that, too, is really telling. it feels like the israelis are trying to give iran space to not escalate this further. they re not trying to rub iran s face in this. they re not crowing, not claiming victory. so you have this kind of war of words playing out on top of the actual strike itself, so at this moment despite those iranian threats we ve been hearing all week that any iisraeli attack would be met with massive retaliation, it does not look like iran is trying to esc
Those israeli air defense systems. we don t know exactly how many interceptors israel fired on saturday night as it was stopping that incoming barrage of iranian drones and rockets, but given it was 350 missiles and drones altogether, you can bet it was a lot of interceptors and those are expensive. they re around $100 thousand each, so israel will be looking to the u.s., to congress to help replenish those funds. the major, major concern as well as obviously a full-scale war with iran is that this back and forth between israel and iran would draw in hezbollah, the powerful lebanese militant group, which has been firing into northern israel since october 7th. israel has been firing back. in the last couple of days israelis say they ve killed two senior commanders and there were 14 soldiers wounded by a hezbollah drone attack. now, at this point as i was saying at the beginning of the
And so what we re seeing at this stage is a muted response to some extent to all these developments when it comes to geopolitical tensions. looking at europe, that s also what we re tracking at this stage. we are seeing european equities moving lower as well. but the point here is that there are other themes playing out in the markets. investors are concerned about higher rates state side. they re also tracking the earnings season, so it s not just about geopolitics. it s not just the main theme for the markets at this stage. so it s worth reiterating in the initial moments we did see investors searching for those safer assets. but at this stage those initial fears have dissipated and that is translating to global equities. that s interesting context you bring there, but what about the impact on oil prices, too? so oil prices they jump off
Going to be looking is is there any evidence at all we can discern. these are locations you re not going to have a lot of media and access. i think a key point is what do we know about the attack? you ll see both sides posturing trying to scale these things down. at the same time, they did have to do something. the israelis felt for their government they had to do something to respond, so really trying to parse out what was the actual damage of an attack, how severe was it, what was the scale of it. were they trying to was the israeli government trying to retaliate and hit a target important to them, that being the natanz facility, for example. a key point everyone is trying to understand is what s the level they can push for. iran was trying to push towards their own domestic audience about their retaliation even though it was not successful
So let s rewind the week, right? at that point it was israel bracing for an iranian attack. the conversations between the u.s. and israel were that the united states would be there to help protect israel in those chaotic hours. and in the skies in jordan and iraq taking down a lot of these incoming drones. president biden spoke to prime minister netanyahu shortly after the iranian attack on saturday night. and he told them, quote, take the win. israel succeeded in this unbelievably complex operation. they hit an air base in southern israel, and the israelis were being told not to escalate further. all week the israelis have been getting that message from the united states, from germany,