Report: US Believes Iran Strike on Israel Imminent

UPDATE Apr 11, 2024 2:00 AM CDT

As fears of an Iranian attack on Israel increased, US President Biden on Wednesday vowed "ironclad" support of Israel, the BBC reports. The comments came during a joint appearance with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the White House lawn and appeared to be a response to Iran's insistence that America not get involved in any Iran-Israel conflict, the Guardian reports. "We also want to address the Iranian threat to launch a significant ... attack in Israel," Biden said. "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. We're gonna do all we can to protect Israel's security."

Apr 10, 2024 4:05 PM CDT

Iran has vowed to respond to an airstrike that killed senior military officials at its embassy in Syria last week—and Bloomberg reports American officials believe Iranian strikes on Israel are imminent. The US officials believe missile or drone strikes on Israeli targets are inevitable and could happen within days, Bloomberg reports, citing "people familiar with the intelligence." Reuters reports that on Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the Damascus attack was the equivalent of an attack on Iran's own soil. "The evil regime made a mistake and must be punished and it shall be," he said.

Israel—which hasn't admitted striking the Damascus building—said Wednesday that it would respond to any strike from Iran, the AP reports. "If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran," Israel Katz, the country's foreign minister, said in posts on X in Hebrew and Farsi. After the airstrike last week, the US said it was not involved and warned Iran not to use the strike as a pretext to strike American personnel and facilities in the region. "The United States had no involvement in the strike and we did not know about it ahead of time," a National Security Council spokesperson told CNN. (More Iran stories.)