Biden warns of possible Iranian strike on Israel
07:43, 11 April 2024Source: NBC News
Iran may be planning to strike targets in Israel in response to the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders in Damascus, US President Joe Biden said at a press conference following a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
"As I told Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel's security in light of these threats from Iran and its proxies remains ironclad," Biden added.
According to The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, U.S. intelligence reports show that an attack on Israel by Iran "may be imminent."
The fact that the White House is concerned about a possible Iranian strike on Israeli targets, on April 5, according to NBC News, was also reported by anonymous US officials. They suggested that Iran's targets inside Israel were more likely to target military or intelligence facilities rather than civilians. According to them, the White House has begun to consider options for responding to various possible Iranian retaliatory actions.
On April 10, the United States appealed to the countries of the region with a request to encourage Iran to avoid escalation, the WSJ writes, citing a source. According to Axios, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, asked the foreign ministers of the Arab countries to convey a signal to Iran about the need to de-escalate the situation. After that, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Iraq spoke by phone with the Iranian foreign minister and discussed tensions in the region.
The German airline Lufthansa announced the suspension of flights to Tehran from April 6 due to the situation in the Middle East. As Reuters notes, Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines are the only Western carriers operating international flights to Tehran. Austrian Airlines has not made any announcements about the suspension of flights.
On April 1, Israeli aircraft struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria. Seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed, including the commander of the Quds Force, General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi. The Russian Foreign Ministry "strongly condemned" the attack on the Iranian consulate and called Israel's actions "absolutely unacceptable."
After the strike, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that "the Zionist regime will be punished." On April 7, Khamenei's military adviser threatened that none of Israel's embassies were "safe anymore." Netanyahu said Israel was ready for any response. "Whoever has harmed or planned to harm us, we will harm them," the Israeli prime minister said.