Israel’s foreign minister threatened Wednesday that his country’s forces would strike Iran directly if the Islamic Republic launched an attack from its territory against Israel.
His comments came amid heightened tensions between the rival powers following the killings of Iranian generals in a blast at the Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month.
“If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran,” Israel Katz said in a post on X in both Farsi and Hebrew.
Earlier Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated a promise to retaliate against Israel over the attack on its consulate in Damascus.
Their comments came after a congressional official and a former senior U.S. official confirmed that Iran has been sending weapons to the occupied West Bank through criminal networks operating in Jordan and elsewhere.
Citing U.S., Israeli as well as Iranian officials, The New York Times first reported on the arms smuggling Tuesday.
The report came after Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last month that Iran was smuggling “high-quality” weapons into the occupied West Bank.
Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, told NBC News Wednesday that there has been a “significant uptick” in Iranian efforts to get weapons into the occupied West Bank.
Levitt, who served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department from 2005-2007 and as a counter-terrorism advisor at the State Department in 2008-9, added that in recent years but the effort “has increased even more because the Iranians see an opportunity there.”
“They’re trying to light a fire on as many fronts against Israel as possible,” including in the Gaza Strip, in the Red Sea and on Israel’s border with Lebanon, Levitt said. “They just want to flood the West Bank with weapons right because that’s a headache for the Palestinian Authority and for Israel,” he added.
The CIA declined to comment and Iran’s Mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tensions between the two nations remain high after the attack on the consulate in Damascus.
Tehran holds Israel responsible for the strike that leveled the building, killing 12 people. Israel has not acknowledged its involvement, though it has been bracing for an Iranian response to the attack, a significant escalation in their long-running shadow war.
Khamenei spoke at a prayer ceremony celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, saying the airstrike was “wrongdoing” and akin to an attack on Iranian territory.
“When they attacked our consulate area, it was like they attacked our territory,” Khamenei said, in remarks broadcast by Iranian state TV. “The evil regime must be punished, and it will be punished.”
Neither Katz nor the Ayatollah elaborated on the way they would retaliate.
Among 12 killed in the blast on April 1 were seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard members, four Syrians and a Hezbollah militia member.
Khamenei also criticized the West, particularly the U.S. and Britain, for supporting Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
“It was expected they (would) prevent (Israel) in this disaster. They did not. They did not fulfil their duties, the Western governments,” he said.
Iran supports anti-Israeli militant organizations like Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It does not recognize Israel.
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