JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s international minister threatened Wednesday that his navy would assault Iran immediately if the Islamic Republic launches an assault on Israel from its territory.
His feedback got here amid heightened tensions between the rival powers after Iranian generals have been killed in a bombing on the Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month.
“If Iran assaults from its personal territory, Israel will reply by attacking inside Iran,” Israel Katz stated in a put up on X, in each Farsi and Hebrew.
Earlier Wednesday, Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated his dedication to retaliate towards Israel over the assault on its consulate in Damascus.
Tehran claims Israel is answerable for the assault, which destroyed buildings and killed 12 folks. Israel has denied involvement however is getting ready for an Iranian response to the assault, a big escalation in a long-running shadow struggle.
The airstrike killed General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps who till 2016 led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria. The different 11 killed included six members of the Revolutionary Guards, 4 Syrians and one member of the Hezbollah militia.
Over the years, Israel has attacked quite a few Iranian-linked targets in Syria with the obvious intention of disrupting arms transfers and different cooperation with Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah. The Israeli navy hardly ever feedback on these assaults. Since the struggle between Israel and Hamas started within the Gaza Strip six months in the past, there have been near-daily gun battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah alongside the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who triggered the struggle with an assault on southern Israel on October 7, are additionally supported by Iran. The Iranian authorities additionally helps the Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement, an Iraqi militia that targets US navy bases and strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
Khamenei, talking at a prayer ceremony marking the tip of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, stated the assault on the consulate was much like assaults on Iranian territory.
“When they attacked our consulate space, it was like attacking our territory,” Khamenei stated in remarks broadcast by Iranian state tv. “Evil regimes should and will likely be punished.”
Neither Katz nor the Ayatollah have detailed how they’ll retaliate.
Khamenei additionally criticized Western nations, notably the United States and Britain, for supporting Israel in its struggle towards Hamas within the Gaza Strip.
“They have been anticipated to forestall (Israel) from this catastrophe. They didn’t. Western governments didn’t fulfill their obligations,” he stated.
Iran doesn’t acknowledge Israel.