Iran is going to launch direct retaliatory strikes on Israel in the next two days, according to US officials and other sources contacted by The Wall Street Journal.
Analyses from US intelligence found earlier this week that an attack on Israeli assets was likely, but they now think it could occur within the Israeli borders—“possibly on Israeli soil,” as one American official put it.
US government employees and family members will be restricted from person travel outside of central Israel, Jerusalem, and Beersheba, according to the American Embassy in Israel on Thursday. The leader of US military operations in the Middle East, General Michael Erik Kurilla, was in Israel on Thursday as well.
“Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We are prepared to meet all of the security needs of the State of Israel, both defensively and offensively,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
However, a source connected to the Iranian government told the Journal that no final decision has been made.
This follows from the Israeli airstrike that killed three sons and three grandchildren of the top Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Wednesday. Haniyeh described the attack as being in “the spirit of revenge and murder” and told Al Jazeera that his sons “were martyred on the road to liberating Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
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Last week, reports indicated that the Ayatollah Khamenei was going to launch an attack on Israel in retaliation for Israeli airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Damascus that took out multiple officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Among the dead was General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the highest ranking Iranian military figure to be killed so far in the Israel-Hamas conflict, outranking Sayyed Reza Mousavi who was killed in December. Five IRGC officers and another general were killed in the strike as well.
At the time, Iranian ambassador Hossein Akbari, who survived the attack, said Iran’s response would be “decisive,” according to Al Jazeera.
When asked if they were responsible for the attack, a spokesperson for the Israeli military merely replied: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.” Israel has conducted airstrikes on Iranian Guard personnel numerous times since the October 7th attacks.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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