Israel’s security cabinet has ordered the military to step up preparations for a possible attack on Iran, according to a report by Israeli public broadcaster KAN on Wednesday evening.
KAN said the directives issued by the cabinet “could lead it to carry out activities that could trigger a war”. The cabinet, chaired by caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has not met since 5 October, three weeks before Israel’s inconclusive election, and is due to convene again on Sunday for the first time in more than a month.
The report emerged after Gadi Eisenkot, the opposition leader asked by President Isaac Herzog to try to form a new government, wrote to Netanyahu urging him not to deploy the military “without a direct and immediate threat” until a government enjoying the confidence of the Knesset is sworn in. Netanyahu’s office dismissed the letter as an attempt to introduce political considerations into matters of national security.
Iran answered within hours. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said that if the United States launched another war against Iran, “every military base involved in the aggression, from West Asia to Europe, will be a legitimate target for Iran’s lethal strikes”. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told Al Jazeera that the Strait of Hormuz would “never return” to its status before the US-Israel war on Iran, and that “the ball is now in the American court”.
The warning comes as Qatar-led talks to end the war continue and Tehran has rejected a US proposal to transfer its stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium to a third country. Brent crude rose 1.39 percent to $92.76 on the news. Israel’s Channel 12 reported separately that military chief of staff Eyal Zamir had again opposed unspecified action that Netanyahu wanted to take against Iran.
Bahrain has requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, scheduled for Thursday at 3:10pm New York time.
The cabinet order itself has not been officially confirmed: it rests on KAN’s reporting, and neither the prime minister’s office nor the Israel Defense Forces has confirmed an imminent strike.
Sources: KAN, as reported by Al Jazeera; The Insight International (https://theinsightinternational.com/israeli-security-cabinet-ordered-army-to-ready-for-possible-iran-strike-kan-reports/); AzerNews (https://www.azernews.az/region/267270.html); Devdiscourse (https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/international/4005536-un-security-council-to-meet-on-situation-in-the-middle-east)
