Israel is on high alert in the aftermath of an airstrike that killed an Iranian general earlier this week, prepping its defenses against a possible retaliatory strike just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on offense with a warning of his own.
Israel suspended leave for combat units and heightened its air defenses in anticipation of an attack after Iranian Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, his deputy, and five others linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed in Syria. Iran has blamed Israel for the attack, which killed at least 11 overall at the Iranian consulate in Damascus, The Guardian reported.
Hossein Akbari, Iran’s ambassador to Syria, said the terrorist state’s response to the strike would be “at the same magnitude and harshness.”
Netanyahu was not accepting a defensive posture.
“For years, Iran has been acting against us both directly and via its proxies; therefore, Israel is acting against Iran and its proxies, defensively and offensively,” Netanyahu said at the start of a security cabinet meeting late on Thursday, Reuters reported.
“We will know how to defend ourselves, and we will act according to the simple principle of whoever harms us or plans to harm us, we will harm them,” he said.
