Iran is reportedly preparing a revenge attack on Israel in the next two days after two Iranian generals were killed in an airstrike in Syria.
The country has threatened to hit back at Israel in two days over the attack last week in Damascus that Tehran said was an Israeli airstrike on a diplomatic building.
A person briefed by the Iranian leadership told the Wall Street Journal that while plans to attack are being discussed no decision has been made.
An adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the outlet: ‘The strike plans are in front of the Supreme Leader and he is still weighing the political risk.’
Israel was widely blamed for an April 1 attack that destroyed Iran’s consulate building in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, including the two generals.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that Israel ‘must be punished and will be punished’, days after one of his advisers said Israeli embassies are ‘no longer safe’.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly replied on social media site X that ‘if Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack Iran’.
Iran is ‘threatening to launch a significant attack on Israel’, President Biden said on Wednesday, pledging ‘ironclad’ support for its top regional ally despite diplomatic tensions over Israel’s military conduct in Gaza.
US Central Command chief Michael Kurilla was in Israel on Thursday to discuss the situation with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, the Pentagon said.
‘We warned Iran,’ White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a briefing without elaborating.
The strike on Monday levelled a five-storey building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
General Mohammad Reza Zahedi was one of those who died in the attack, having held a succession of commands in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force.
The US embassy in Israel has since announced it was restricting the movements of its diplomats over security fears.
They said that ‘out of an abundance of caution’ staffers and their family could not undertake personal travel outside the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheeva areas ‘until further notice’.
