‘No longer safe’: Iran threatens Israeli embassies

Tehran claims it has a ‘legal right’ to attack Israel, showcasing nine missiles it says could reach the country as Houthis strike a UK and two Israeli ships in the Red Sea.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. Picture: AFP.

Iran has threatened to attack Israeli embassies after a strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus that killed the country’s top military commander in Syria.

“The embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe,” Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, according to Iran news agency ISNA. Safavi added that Tehran regarded confrontation with Israel as a “legitimate and legal right.”

He said 28 Israeli embassies and consulates have been temporarily closed because of threats on behalf of Iran and its proxies. The closures “happened out of fear, and it means that confronting this brutal regime is a legal and legitimate right,” he said, according to state news agency Tasnim.

ISNA also published a graphic of nine missiles it said were capable of reaching Israel, while

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said his country “will use its recognised rights within the framework of international law to hold the criminal aggressors accountable and punish them.”

ISNA has published an infographic of 9 Iranian-made missiles that it says are capable of hitting Israel. pic.twitter.com/EK1IjNaUJA

— Saeed Azimi (@SaeedAzimi1772) April 7, 2024

As Houthi rebels claimed to have attacked UK, US and Israeli ships in the Red Sea, with the UK ship Hope Island and two Israeli ships taking direct hits, Amir-Abdollahian thanked ‘the Yemeni nation’ for its support for the oppressed Palestinian nation.’

At a meeting in Oman with Houthi spokesman and senior official Mohammed Abdelsalam, he called the Damascus strike “a new page of this regime’s warmongering and its efforts to expand the war in the region.”

#معركة_الفتح_الموعود_والجهاد_المقدسpic.twitter.com/hS1TPC9jgk

— العميد يحيى سريع (@army21ye) April 7, 2024

According to Syrian pro-government newspaper Al-Watan, Amir-Abdollahian travels on to Damascus on Monday for an official visit.

Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was ready to respond to any attack by Iran, telling troops Israel had “completed preparations for a response against any scenario that would develop against Iran.”

The attack in Damascus destroyed a building reported to be the Syrian headquarters of the Iran Revolutionary Guard, killing seven IRGC members including two generals, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, head of the IRGC’s operations in Syria and Lebanon, for Iranian militias there, and point man for Hezbollah.

the Israeli Defence forces are preparing for missile and drone attacks by Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraw and Yemen and ballistic issile attacks from inside Iran, the Times of Israel reports.

Last week, the IDF cancelled all leave, called up reservists and bolstered air defences in preparation for an attack.

Iran has reportedly also put its military forces on “full high alert” ahead of any expected strike.

With AFP