A TOP Iranian military adviser warned Israel today that its diplomatic missions could face attack in retaliation for last week’s Israeli air strike on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus that killed 12 people, including two senior Iranian generals.
The attack in the Syrian capital and Iran’s reaction have increased fears that Israel’s brutal military action in Gaza could spark a wider war in the Middle East.
Israel, while not directly admitting involvement in the embassy attack has been preparing for Iranian retaliation and General Rahim Safavi’s remarks point to the attack on a diplomatic mission receiving a similar response.
“None of the embassies of the [Israeli] regime are safe any more,” Gen Safavi, a military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim agency.
He spoke at a memorial ceremony in Tehran for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard generals who were killed in the strike that flattened an Iranian consular building in Damascus.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel was prepared for any response, telling a cabinet meeting: “Whoever harms us or plans to harm us, we will harm them.”
The surge in regional tensions came as the Gaza war reached the six-month mark. In that time, Israel has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children and lost over 600 of its soldiers, including 260 in the Gaza ground operation.
Israel’s military announced today that it was drawing back paratroopers from the Khan Younis area, bringing Israeli troop levels in Gaza to some of the lowest since the war began.
Negotiations were expected to resume in Cairo last night on a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack that sparked the current war.
On Saturday, Israel’s military said it had recovered the body of a 47-year-old farmer who had been held hostage in Gaza.
At the same time, there was mounting pressure for immediate action.
“Humanity has been all but abandoned” in Gaza, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said today in a statement marking six months of war.
The United Nations and its partners now warn of imminent famine for more than one million people as humanitarian workers urge Israel to loosen restrictions on the delivery of aid overland, the only way to meet soaring needs, as some Palestinians forage for weeds to eat.
