JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s defense minister said on Sunday his country was ready to face any scenario after Iran threatened to retaliate for the April 1 assassination of Iranian generals.
An Iranian official said Sunday that Israeli embassies were unsafe, and a semi-official news agency published a graphic showing weapons it said would be capable of hitting Israel.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav GallantThe office made the readiness statement after conducting an “operational situation assessment” with senior Army officers.
“After completing the assessment, Minister Gallant emphasized that the defense establishment had completed preparations to respond in the event that a scenario could develop with respect to Iran,” his office said.
Iran has threatened to respond to a suspected Israeli strike in Damascus that killed seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including a top commander.
A senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Yahya Rahim Safavi, said on Sunday that none of Israel’s embassies were any longer secure and that Tehran considered confrontation with Israel a “legitimate and legal right.”
Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency published a graphic on Sunday showing nine different types of Iranian missiles that it says are capable of hitting Israel.
Israel has not confirmed that it was behind the attack on Damascus. Its leaders said in more general terms that they were operating against Iran, which supports the militant groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both of which have been fighting with Israel for six months.
The United States is also on alert and preparing for a possible Iranian attack targeting Israeli or American assets in the region.
Israeli, Argentinian and American authorities have accused Iran of being behind the deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish center in the Argentine capital, which killed 85 people and in which Tehran denied any involvement.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, editing by Angus MacSwan, Ros Russell and Frances Kerry)
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