Israel beefs up defences, on alert after Iran revenge threat
JERUSALEM — Israel braced on Thursday for the possibility of a retaliatory attack after its suspected killing of Iranian generals in Damascus this week, saying it would respond forcefully and signalling it had stiffened its military preparedness.
Israel’s armed forces — stretched by nearly six months of war in the Gaza Strip and on the Lebanese front — announced they were suspending leave for all combat units, a day after they said they were mobilizing more troops for air defence units.
The possibility of Iran retaliating for Monday’s presumed Israeli airstrike on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus has raised the spectre of a wider war, though two Iranian sources said Tehran’s response would be calibrated to avoid escalation.
“The State of Israel is prepared for every scenario. We will respond with force to any attempts to attack us,” government spokesperson Raquela Karamson said in a briefing.
Reuters journalists and residents of Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv said GPS services had been disrupted, an apparent measure to help ward off guided missiles.
Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has sworn revenge for the killing of two of its generals along with five military advisers in an airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital on Monday.
Israel is believed to have carried out the strike, among the most significant yet on Iranian interests in Tehran’s close ally Syria. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Since then, investors have been on edge. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s main TA125 share index fell another 2.2 per cent on Thursday to extend losses this week to around four per cent. The Israeli shekel was 0.6 per cent weaker versus the dollar at a 3.73 rate and government bond prices were down as much as 0.4 per cent.
“In accordance with the situational assessment, it has been decided that leave will be temporarily paused for all IDF (Israel Defence Forces) combat units,” the military said in a statement. “The IDF is at war and the deployment of forces is under continuous assessment according to requirements.”
With Israelis anxious about a possible escalation, the military later issued a statement clarifying that no changes had been made in its guidelines for the home front and that there was no need to gather food, cash or generators.
Israel has been pressing its war on Hamas in Gaza since the Palestinian Islamists led a cross-border killing and kidnapping spree on Oct. 7, and has also been trading fire almost daily with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which are aligned with Tehran, have launched occasional long-range rockets at Israel’s Eilat port.
CAUTIOUS IRAN?
Until now, Iran has avoided directly entering the fray, while supporting allies’ attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets.
The Islamic Republic has several options. It could unleash its heavily armed proxies in Syria and Iraq on U.S. forces, use Hezbollah to hit Israel directly or ramp up its uranium enrichment program, a perceived nuclear bomb-making risk which the United States and its allies have long sought to curb.
But many diplomats and analysts say Iran’s clerical elite does not want any all-out war with Israel or the U.S. that might endanger its grip on power, and would prefer to keep using proxies to carry out selective tactical attacks on its foes.
Such proxy strikes on U.S. forces in the region ceased in February after Washington retaliated for the killing of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan with dozens of airstrikes on targets in Syria and Iraq linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and militias it supports.