WE’LL HIT BACK IN SECONDS..
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IRAN has threatened to hit back “within seconds” if it comes under fire from Israel, amid fears of a wider conflict breaking out.
Israel’s war cabinet met for a fourth time over the crisis yesterday, thrashing out plans to avenge Iran’s massive missile and drone onslaught.
Tehran’s deputy foreign Minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, said Israel will face a “resolute and hard response” if it goes ahead with another attack.
Referring to the delay before his country’s response to Israel’s April 1 Syria airstrike, in which two of Tehran’s key generals were among 13 dead, he said: “There will not be a 12 or 13 day gap between a Zionist regime move and Iran’s powerful response anymore.
“The Zionists must now reckon in seconds, not hours.”
The war of words raged as Israel is still drawing up a battle plan for military action against Iran.
Iran and its proxies fired 300 missiles and drones on Israel at the weekend, the first time ever the Islamic Republic has fired upon Israel directly.
Israel’s frontier with Lebanon is becoming increasingly hostile amid speculation Tel Aviv could launch an attack on Iran’s Hezbollah proxies there.
IDF troops have been seen heading to the border and several Israeli soldiers were wounded inside southern Lebanon on Monday as Hezbollah set off a pre-planted bomb, although it is not known if the troops were on a reconnaissance mission.
Sources say Israel wants to “hit Iran hard” in a way that is decisive, strategically advantageous and that will discourage Iran from retaliating.
Senior Tories, including ex-leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and ex-home secretary Suella Braverman, have urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to slap a terror ban on Tehran’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But Home Office minister Laura Farris said it would jeopardise lines of communication with Iran. And ex-head of MI6 John Sawers said a ban was unnecessary, adding: “I don’t think the professionals in the Government are calling for this. It’s more of a rhetorical position of people in various parts of the political spectrum looking for something to do.”
Sunak is expected to press Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu not to retaliate against Iran.
Downing Street denied the UK, which supplied RAF jets to help thwart Iran’s barrage over the weekend, was being “taken for granted” by Israel.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “He has obviously been in discussions with his war cabinet.
“The Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary have been speaking to their counterparts.”
The spokesman added: “Our position has been made very clearly. We are now working with allies in the region, including Israel, to de-escalate the situation.”
Tehran has closed down its nuclear sites, according to the UN’s Rafael Grossi which includes a uranium enrichment plant in Fordow and a hardened fuel enrichment plant in Natanz.
It is feared that Iran almost has the technology to make nuclear weapons which, given its desire to obliterate Israel, is a nightmare scenario.
It has the materials and parts needed but has not yet put them together.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran has enough fissile material for three nuclear bombs.
It added: “The Israeli government, and particularly PM Benjamin Netanyahu, views the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon as an existential threat given Israel’s small geographic size and the concentration of its population in a few cities.”