Germany’s Lufthansa earlier said after careful evaluation it had suspended flights to and from Tehran from April 6 until probably Thursday, April 11, “due to the current situation in the Middle East”.
Countries in the region and the US have been on high alert and preparing for a possible attack by Iran since the strike in Damascus.
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“We are constantly monitoring the situation in the Middle East and are in close contact with the authorities. The safety of our guests and crew members is Lufthansa’s top priority,” a spokesperson for the company told Reuters.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said earlier that Israel “must be punished, and it shall be” for the attack on the diplomatic compound. He said the strike was tantamount to an attack on Iranian territory.
In an apparent response to Khamenei, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Israel would respond if Iran attacked Israel from its own soil.
Israel’s Western allies have been told Israeli government and military facilities may be targeted but civilian facilities are not expected to be, they said. US officials were helping Israel on planning and sharing intelligence assessments, the people said. Israel has told allies it is waiting for this attack to take place before launching another ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah in Gaza, though it’s not clear how soon that operation may begin.
Iran has vowed to retaliate to an airstrike on its consular facilities in Damascus on April 1.Credit: AP
US and Western intelligence indicates an attack from Iran and its proxies may not necessarily come from Israel’s north, where Tehran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon is located, the people said.
Foreign diplomatic missions are preparing for the potential strikes, making contingency plans for evacuation amid requests from Israeli authorities about emergency supplies like generators and satellite phones, one of the people said, noting that they were not aware of any Western missions planning immediate evacuation.
While the US has pushed Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden administration has also signalled it was prepared to back the country in the event of an attack by Iran or its proxies.
It’s not yet clear whether a potential attack by Iran and its proxies would turn the conflict into a broader, more prolonged war or remain contained, one of the people said. A direct Iranian strike on an Israeli city would be a first and intensify hostilities in a major way. Last week, Israel scrambled navigational signals over the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, preparing for a potential attack.
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Israeli embassies have also been considered targets for potential attacks after the strike on Damascus last week, with several missions around the world shuttered.
Iran’s main proxy group is Hezbollah, which is based in southern Lebanon and has been trading fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the war in Gaza erupted in October. Since the start of the war, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from northern Israel and southern Lebanon.