The Israeli army says it \u2018strengthened the alertness of combat units\u2019 after attack on Iranian consulate in Damascus
\nDamascus
\nIsrael\u2019s military is strengthening its defences after a deadly air raid on the Iranian consulate in Damascus drew threats of retaliation, the military said, increasing manpower and drafting reserve soldiers to operate air defences.
\n\u201cWe strengthened the alertness of combat units, where needed,\u201d Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday.
\n\u201cWe have reinforced the defence systems and we have aircraft prepared for defence and ready to attack in a variety of scenarios.\u201d
\nThe Israeli military also announced it had paused leave for combat units and blocked GPS signals in certain parts of the country, which is intended to defend against guided weapons, such as missiles or drones.
\n\u201cThe [army] is at war and the issue of the deployment of forces is constantly reviewed according to need,\u201d the military said in announcing the leave suspension.
\nTensions have been inflamed by Monday\u2019s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus which killed at least 13 people, according to Iranian state media.
\nAmong the dead were seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard members, two of them generals.
\nIsrael has declined to comment on the attack, which signals an escalation of Israel\u2019s campaign against Iran\u2019s regional proxies that runs the risk of triggering a wider war.
\nIran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pledged in a social media message that \u201cwith God\u2019s help we will make the Zionists repent of their crime of aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus\u201d.
\nThe Israeli military has been assaulting Syria for more than a decade, taking advantage of the country\u2019s chaos following the war that started in 2011.
\nThe attacks have intensified since 2017 \u2013 almost becoming a weekly occurrence \u2013 to target the rising Iranian presence and influence in Syria after years of Tehran\u2019s support for the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
\nMonday\u2019s killing targeted the highest-ranking member of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) since the Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani was assassinated by the US in Iraq in January 2020, leaving Tehran under pressure to respond as it seeks to prevent the expansion of the war on Gaza across the region.
\nAs Israel has fought in Gaza since the Hamas attack of October 7, it has also stepped up attacks against Iranian personnel and allies in Syria and Lebanon.
\nIsrael has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, targeting senior members of the group and pushing its attacks further into Lebanese territory.
\nHezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly said that his armed group\u2019s cross-border shelling into Israel would only end when Israel\u2019s \u201caggression\u201d on Gaza ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Israeli army says it \u2018strengthened the alertness of combat units\u2019 after attack on Iranian consulate in Damascus Damascus Israel\u2019s military is strengthening its defences after a deadly air raid on the Iranian consulate in Damascus drew threats of retaliation, the military said, increasing manpower and drafting reserve soldiers to operate air defences. \u201cWe strengthened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-398811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n