JERUSALEM(National Times) As Israel on Friday nervously awaited an attack by Iran or its proxies in retaliation for the last week strike on Iran\u2019s embassy in Damascus, the United States said it was sending reinforcements to the Middle East.
\u201cWe are moving additional assets to the region to bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection for US forces,\u201d said a US defence official in Washington, a key ally of Israel, amid fears of retaliation for the strike.
Countries including India, France and Russia have warned their citizens against travel to the region, already on edge over the escalation in attacks on Gaza.
The Israeli military said it had not issued fresh instructions to civilians, but that its forces were on high alert and prepared for a range of scenarios.
\u201cThe revenge will come,\u201d wrote Israel\u2019s largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. \u201cFor the moment, the premise is that it will be very soon, in the next few days.\u201d
Israel\u2019s foreign ministry did not comment on reports that some Israeli diplomatic missions had been partially evacuated and security stepped up.
Israel did not claim responsibility for the April 1 strike on the embassy in Damascus where a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 overseas Quds Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and six other officers were killed.
Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Israel and said it \u201cmust be punished and shall be\u201d for an operation he said was equivalent to an attack on Iranian soil.
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be very difficult for Iran not to retaliate,\u201d said Raz Zimmt, senior researcher at Israel\u2019s Institute for National Security Studies. Since Iran viewed the embassy attack as equivalent to an attack on its own territory, Zimmt said a direct attack on Israeli soil by Iran itself rather than a proxy was a \u2018real possibility\u2019.
Iran has missiles capable of hitting Israel directly.
However, Zimmt added, \u201cI still believe that Iran doesn\u2019t want to engage in full-scale, direct military confrontation against Israel, and certainly not with the United States. But it has to do something.\u201d
Reprisal threat \u2018real\u2019: White House
Meanwhile, the US Middle East envoy has called the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Iraq to ask them to deliver a message to Iran urging it to lower tensions with Israel, a source with knowledge of the situation said, as the White House said Iran\u2019s threats of reprisals against Israel after the strike in Syria remain \u2018real\u2019.
\u201cWe still deem the potential threat by Iran here to be real, to be viable,\u201d National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists.
President Biden earlier on Wednesday warned that Iran is \u201cthreatening to launch a significant attack on Israel.\u201d He pledged \u201cironclad\u201d support for Israel despite diplomatic tensions over its military conduct in Gaza.
After a meeting with the head of US Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav
Gallant said: \u201cWe are prepared to defend ourselves on the ground and in the air, in close cooperation with our partners, and we will know how to respond,\u201d
However, Iranian sources and diplomats from the US, Israel\u2019s main protector, say Tehran has signalled to Washington that it wishes to avoid escalation and will not act hastily.
But the risk remains that any response might spin out of control.
Iran\u2019s message to Washington was conveyed by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian during a visit to the Gulf Arab state of Oman, which has often acted as an intermediary between Tehran and Washington, the sources said.
Sources said Iran believes Israel aims to draw Tehran into a war, therefore its retaliation could be a restrained one that avoids direct strikes on Israeli territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JERUSALEM(National Times) As Israel on Friday nervously awaited an attack by Iran or its proxies in retaliation for the last week strike on Iran\u2019s embassy in Damascus, the United States said it was sending reinforcements to the Middle East.\u201cWe are moving additional assets to the region to bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n