President Biden has said he expects an attack on Israel from Iran “sooner than later” as Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel in a prelude to a feared Iranian revenge attack.
The US has also reinforced its military presence in the Middle East.
The Iranian-backed terrorist group, which has conducted regular cross-border attacks on Israel, claimed that it fired the volley on Friday night in response to Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon. The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were launched, some of which were intercepted, along with two kamikaze drones. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
• Iran attacks Israel: Netanyahu vows reprisals — follow the latest
Israel is on high alert for a possible attack by Iranian forces or their regional proxy forces, of which Hezbollah is the most powerful. Tehran has threatened reprisals after an Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus killed 13 people on April 1. Israel has vowed to retaliate against Iran, if attacked.
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President Biden said on Friday that he expected an Iranian attack on Israel “sooner than later”.
Speaking at the White House, Biden was asked about the latest situation in the Middle East. Stressing that he did not want to get into the details of classified security intelligence, he nonetheless said that he believed a strike by Iran or one of its proxies in the region was expected soon. “My expectation is sooner than later,” he said.
Asked whether he had a message to leaders in Tehran, he replied: “Don’t”.
The president was preparing to leave the press conference when number of other questions were shouted by reporters, prompting him to return to his lectern and add: “We are devoted to the defence of Israel. We will support Israel and help defend Israel, and Iran will not succeed.”
It was not clear how much of an escalation the latest missile launches constitute given previous exchanges of fire across the border with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where at least 363 people have been killed, including 70 civilians, since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October. At least ten Israeli soldiers and eight civilians have been killed in the north of the country.
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However, the threats from Iran, and American intelligence reports about a possible “imminent” escalation, have prompted the Pentagon to deploy a US aircraft carrier group to the northern Red Sea as well as move other unspecified resources.
“We are moving additional assets to the region to bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection for US forces,” a US defence official in Washington told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
Earlier reports had indicated that the Pentagon was deploying additional air defence systems to the region to guard against the possibility that any strike against Israel would also target its forces.
Iran sent messages to the US earlier this week indicating that Tehran would attack American military sites in Middle East if it intervened to help Israel following any strike. The message was communicated by a number of Arab countries, according to Axios, the US website.
Three US service personnel were killed in January when a drone launched by Islamist factions in the region hit an American military outpost in Jordan. US troops stationed in Iraq and Syria also came under attack by Iran-backed proxy forces on more than a hundred occasions between October and February.
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France, Poland and India have joined a growing number of countries urging their citizens not to travel to Israel over the heightened fears of an attack. The US and Russia this week also advised citizens it was not safe to travel to the country.
The British government already advises against all travel to Gaza, the West Bank and parts of northern Israel. It advises against all but essential travel to the rest of Israel.
The advice means British holiday companies should not operate in the country although flights are so far unaffected. British Airways resumed flights to Tel Aviv on April 1, flying four times a week via Larnaca in Cyprus.
The US Defence Department told CNN that it was moving assets to the Middle East “to bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection for US forces”.
John Kirby, the White House national security communications adviser, said Washington was not anticipating any direct attacks on US military assets in the region, but that it wanted to take sensible precautions, saying it would be “imprudent” not to be properly prepared.
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It coincided with the arrival of a Pentagon official in Israel for discussions with its military after the country moved to high alert over a potential attack by Iran. General Michael Erik Kurilla is co-ordinating with Israel to review “current security threats” after Biden said that Iran was threatening “significant” retaliatory action for Israel’s April 1 strike in Damascus, which killed several leading members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Kurilla met Major General Herzi Halevi, the military chief of staff, according to a spokesman for the Israeli military. His visit had been scheduled for a later date but was brought forward in an effort to contain escalation in the region.
The Pentagon said Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, had spoken to his American counterpart Lloyd Austin on Thursday. They discussed the United States’s “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security against threats from Iran and its proxies. Gallant said that Israel would respond directly to any attack on its soil.
“Echoing President Biden’s unequivocal message to Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, secretary Austin assured minister Gallant that Israel could count on full US support to defend Israel against Iranian attacks, which Tehran has publicly threatened,” the Pentagon said.
The US imposed sanctions on Friday on a Hamas spokesman and leaders of the group’s drone unit. The measures targeted Hudhayfa Samir Abdallah al-Kahlut, also known as Abu Ubaida, who has been the spokesman for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas in Gaza, since at least 2007, the US Treasury department said.
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Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida and a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “Barring some last-minute development, Iran is going to attack Israel. The response and risk of escalation will depend on what and how they attack.”
Netanyahu stressed that his country was prepared “defensively and offensively” for an attack by Iran or its proxies. On a visit to a military airbase on Thursday, the Israeli prime minister said that his country was “prepared for scenarios involving challenges in other sectors”. In an apparent reference to Iranian threats, he added: “Whoever harms us, we will harm them.”
• Will Iran attack Israel? Escalation seems imminent and inevitable
The US has warned its diplomatic staff in Israel, “out of an abundance of caution”, not to travel outside three big cities. American staff and their families are restricted from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv area, Jerusalem or Be’er Sheva, according to a public statement that said: “Security incidents often take place without warning.”
According to reports, the Israeli air force has been conducting exercises to “simulate an attack in Iran”. The US said it had warned Iran against responding to the attack in Damascus. Biden has pledged America’s support for Israel in the face of an Iranian attack, despite his public criticism of Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza conflict.
The US is reported to have moved an aircraft carrier strike group away from the western coast of Yemen to the northern waters of the Red Sea, closer to Israel. The move, led by the USS Eisenhower, was aimed at defending against a large-scale missile or drone attack on Israel.
In an effort to dissuade Iran from attacking Israel, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, spoke to the foreign ministers of China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and several European countries, urging them to use their influence on Tehran. Matthew Miller, the spokesman for the US State Department, said Blinken had told his foreign counterparts that “escalation is not in anyone’s interest and that countries should urge Iran not to escalate”.
Blinken also spoke to Gallant “to reiterate our strong support for Israel against these threats”, Miller said.
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the foreign secretary, phoned his Iranian counterpart on Thursday to urge against further escalation. “Today I made clear to Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian that Iran must not draw the Middle East into a wider conflict,” Cameron said on Twitter/X.
US and Israeli intelligence agencies believe that an Iranian retaliation is likely, Bloomberg reported. The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday that Israel “must be punished and it shall be”, adding that the attack on the Iranian consulate, which killed a senior IRGC general, had been tantamount to an attack on Iranian soil.
In a hint that Iran may be seeking to defuse the crisis, however, it has emerged that Tehran sent a message to Washington saying that it would respond to the Israeli strike in Damascus in a way that aimed to avoid a big escalation. The message was conveyed by Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Iranian foreign minister, during a visit on Sunday to the Gulf state of Oman, which has long served as an intermediary between the US and Iran.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, repeated Washington’s assurance that the US had not been involved in the attack on Damascus. “We warned Iran not to use this attack as a pretext to escalate further in the region or attack US facilities or personnel,” she said.
Rishi Sunak called Iran’s threats “unacceptable”, telling broadcasters: “We, like the Americans, fully support Israel’s right to defend itself against that.”
