Israel is keeping up its war in Gaza but is also preparing for scenarios in other areas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, amid concern that Iran was preparing to strike Israel in response for the killing of senior Iranian commanders.
Most Israeli troops have been pulled out of Gaza © Mena Today
Israel is keeping up its war in Gaza but is also preparing for scenarios in other areas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, amid concern that Iran was preparing to strike Israel in response for the killing of senior Iranian commanders.
"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," he said in comments released by his office following a visit to the Tel Nof air force base in southern Israel.
Israel has been bracing for possible Iranian retaliation for the killing of a senior general and six other Iranian officers in an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on April 1.
Israel has not said it was responsible but Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday Israel "must be punished and it shall be" for the attack.
Netanyahu made his comments as Israeli troops and warplanes started an operation in central Gaza overnight which the military said was aimed at destroying infrastructure of armed Palestinian groups.
Reporting by James Mackenzie and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo
US forces ended their mission in Iraq on Wednesday after more than two decades of war there, raising fears of a security vacuum that would embolden Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias and allow Islamic State to regroup.
The Israeli government believes an incident on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel, which diverted to Saudi Arabia after transmitting emergency signals on Wednesday, may have been an attempted "terror attack" by one of the pilots, according to two Israeli officials.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi received US feedback via Qatari mediators in Doha on Tuesday on a seven-day plan aimed at building trust between Washington and Tehran, with sequencing the main sticking point, an official, who was not Iranian butwas briefed on the talks, told Reuters.
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