Israel nervously awaited an attack by Iran or its allies on Friday, as warnings grew of retaliation for last week’s killing of a senior official at the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
Countries including India, France and Russia have warned their citizens against travel to the region, which is already under tension due to the war in Gaza, now in its seventh month.
The Israeli army said on Thursday that it had issued no new instructions to civilians, but that its forces were on high alert and prepared for a range of scenarios.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not comment on reports that some Israeli diplomatic missions had been partially evacuated and security had been beefed up.
“Revenge will come,” wrote Israel’s largest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. “For now the premise is that this will happen very soon, in the next few days.”
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the April 1 airstrike that killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, and six other officers as they attended a meeting at the embassy in Damascus.
But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed Israel and said the country “needs to be punished and will be punished” for an operation he considers equivalent to an attack on Iranian soil.
“It will be very difficult for Iran not to retaliate,” said Raz Zimmt, a senior fellow at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies.
“I still believe that Iran does not want to engage in a direct, large-scale military confrontation with Israel, and certainly not with the United States. But it has to do something.”
IRAN WANTS TO AVOID ESCALATION, SOURCES SAY
Iranian sources and diplomats from the United States, Israel’s main ally, say Tehran has signaled to Washington that it wants to avoid an escalation and will not act hastily.
But there is still a risk that any response could get out of hand.
“We are ready to defend ourselves on the ground and in the air, in close cooperation with our partners, and we will know how to respond,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said after a meeting with the head of the American Central Command, General Michael Kurilla.
Since Iran considers the attack on the embassy equivalent to an attack on its own territory, Zimmt said that a direct attack on Israeli soil by Iran itself, rather than by an ally such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, is a real possibility .
“The risk of Israeli retaliation against Iran itself, which would be unprecedented, is certainly something we cannot rule out,” he added.
Iran has missiles capable of directly reaching Israel, and in recent weeks, Israel has strengthened its air defenses, which have intercepted thousands of rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza and by Hezbollah from Lebanon.
The Israeli army has called up reservists in preparation for a possible escalation along the northern border, where it clashes with Hezbollah almost every day.
The country has also withdrawn most of its troops and armored vehicles from Gaza. The ministers said the move was made ahead of a long-promised attack on the city of Rafah, where thousands of Hamas fighters are believed to be entrenched along with more than a million Palestinians displaced from other parts of Gaza.
In Israel, despite there being no formal safety instructions, some parents said their children were told to take books home during the Easter school holidays in preparation for possible disruptions to lessons.
Source: Terra
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