Iran strike on Israel ‘imminent,’ Joe Biden vows ‘ironclad support’

US and Israeli intelligence believe a high precision Iranian missile or drone strike against Israel by Tehran or one of its proxies could come within days.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during the Eid al-Fitr prayer ceremony in Tehran. Picture: AFP.

American intelligence agencies believe that Iran or one of its proxy groups in the Middle East is set to launch an attack on Israel imminently, according to reports.

Tehran is said to be planning a major reprisal for Israel’s strike on Damascus earlier this month when a number of leading members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed. Any attack could lead to a major escalation in the region.

On the basis of assessments from US and Israeli intelligence, officials claimed that an attack by Iran was seen more as matter of when than if, Bloomberg reported.

General Erik Kurilla, the senior US military commander in the Middle East, is expected to arrive in Israel on Thursday to meet senior Israel Defence Forces (IDF) officials and Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, according to Axios, the American news website. US defence officials would not confirm Kurilla’s visit.

Israeli officials say they are preparing for an unprecedented direct attack from Iranian soil using ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles against Israeli targets.

Iran sponsors and arms a number of militant groups including Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, both of whom have been carrying out near-daily attacks in the region since the Hamas terrorist attacks on southern Israel in October prompted an Israeli military response.

Israel warned on Wednesday that if Iran directly attacked its territory in retaliation for the bombing of the Iranian consulate building in Syria on April 1, Israel would strike directly at Iranian territory.

“If Iran attacks from its territory — Israel will respond and attack in Iran,” Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, said on Twitter/X.

In the aftermath of the Israeli strike in Syria, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, declared: “That malicious regime has made a wrong move. It should be punished, and it will be punished.”

Biden has warned Iran not to carry out its threat to strike Israel, adding that Washington would do “all we can” to protect its ally. Speaking at the White House, Biden said: “We also want to address the Iranian threat … they’re threatening to launch a significant attack in Israel.

“As I told prime minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad. Let me say it again, ironclad … all we can to protect Israel’s security.”

Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip continue, on Wednesday killing three sons of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas. He said their deaths would not affect ceasefire negotiations.

Haniyeh, head of the armed group’s political bureau, described his sons as martyrs in a statement on Hamas’s official Telegram account. Three of his grandchildren were also killed, according to the group.

“All our people and the families of Gaza residents have paid a heavy price with the blood of their children, and I am one of them,” he wrote from exile in Qatar. “The blood of my sons is not dearer than the blood of our people,” Haniyeh, 62, who has 13 sons and daughters, said.

He added: “What the enemy failed to extract through killing, destruction and annihilation, he will not take in the negotiations.”

The Israeli military claimed the three men were operatives in the group’s military wing and named them Amir Haniyeh, a cell commander, and Mohammad and Hazem Haniyeh. Israel confirmed in a statement that they were Haniyeh’s sons and alleged they were “on [their] way to carry out a terror act”.

Gazan sources say the airstrike on the al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, also killed three children as they were travelling in a car on their way to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan. Israel did not verify the reports.

The strike is not the first time that Israel has killed members of Haniyeh’s family. He told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that nearly “60 members of my family have been martyred, including my grandchildren, my brother’s sons, my sister’s sons and my cousins”.

This month Israeli police arrested Haniyeh’s sister, Zebah Abdel Salem Haniyeh, 57, in southern Israel on suspicion of co-operating with Hamas in a raid that was codenamed Early Dawn.

The car in which three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were killed in an Israeli air strike. Picture: AFP.

The latest killings may raise tensions between Israel and the United States, which is pushing for the agreement of a humanitarian truce after six months of heavy bombardment and worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

Although it has voiced support against a possible Iranian attack, the White House has been angered by the humanitarian cost of the war and has warned that insufficient aid is getting into Gaza. The Biden administration has also increased its criticism of Netanyahu’s leadership, saying this week that the prime minister was making a “mistake” in Gaza.

In an interview recorded a week ago and broadcast on Tuesday on Univision, an American Spanish-language television network, Biden said there should be an immediate ceasefire and singled out Netanyahu for criticism. “I think what he’s doing is a mistake,” he said. “I don’t agree with his approach.”

Biden is also understood to have been incensed by the April 1 attack on a convoy of aid staff working for the World Central Kitchen group, in which seven people were killed, including three British security advisors.

The Hamas-run Gazan health authorities say that more than 33,000 people have been killed since October in Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which began in response to the attacks by Hamas.

The Times