Israel, Iran trade new threats over Israeli airstrike on Tehran’s consulate in Syria

Israel and Iran are trading threats in the aftermath of Israel’s airstrike that leveled the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing seven Revolutionary Guards, including two of Tehran’s generals.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that Israel "must be punished and will be punished” for the April 1 attack, days after one of his advisers said Israeli embassies are "no longer safe."

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly answered on the social media site X that "if Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack Iran.”

Iran partly blamed the United Nations for the possibility of expanded warfare in the Mideast.

“Had the U.N. Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated,” the Iran mission to the UN said on social media site X.

During a visit to an airbase in central Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of "challenging times" on multiple fronts.

"We are in the middle of the war in Gaza which continues in full force... but we are also preparing for scenarios of challenges from other arenas," Netanyahu said in comments released by his office.

Russia called on both Iran and Israel to exercise restraint, after earlier warning Russians to refrain from travelling to Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on X urged "maximum restraint," while the German airline Lufthansa said it had extended a temporary suspension of flights to Iran until Saturday.

As the Iranian threat loomed, Israel strengthened its air defenses and paused leave for combat units. The United States warned of the risk of an attack by Iran or its allied groups at a time Middle East tensions have risen because of the six-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Iran is "threatening to launch a significant attack on Israel," U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday, pledging "ironclad" support for Israel, even as the U.S. and Israel have sparred over the Jewish state’s conduct of the war with Hamas and its refusal, until recently, to allow extensive humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The war was ignited by the shock October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages, 100 or so of whom Hamas is still holding.

Israel’s subsequent counter-offensive has killed more than 33,000 people in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza medical officials. The Israeli military says the dead include several thousand Hamas militants.

Some material in this report came from Agence France-Presse.