MOSCOW, April 11 Major missile attack on Israel from outside Iran or its allies with the possible use of high-precision missiles is inevitable and could happen in the coming days, Bloomberg reports, citing sources familiar with US and Israeli intelligence.
«The United States and its allies believe that major missile or drone strikes by Iran or its proxies against military and government targets in Israel are inevitable,» the agency writes.
A potential attack involving the possible use of precision-guided missiles could occur in the coming days, the sources said. «It's more a question of when, not if,» one of the agency's anonymous interlocutors said, based on US and Israeli intelligence assessments.
Israel's Western allies were told that the Israeli government and military targets could be attacked but that civilian targets would not be targeted, the sources said. Israel, in turn, told allies it was waiting for the attack before launching a new ground offensive against the Palestinian Hamas movement in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Bloomberg notes that Western intelligence indicates that an attack from Iran and its allies may not necessarily come from northern Israel, where the Lebanese Hezbollah movement is based.
An Israeli airstrike on the building of the Iranian Consulate General in the Syrian capital Damascus occurred on the evening of April 1, as reported by the Syrian Ministry of Defense. The consulate building also housed the residence of Iranian Ambassador Hossein Akbari — the latter was not injured during the attack. According to a statement by the Syrian defense ministry, the consulate building was completely destroyed as a result of a missile attack.
According to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (elite units of the Armed Forces), the Israeli strike killed seven IRGC officers, including two senior general advisers: Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, as well as his deputy, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry stated that it reserves the right to respond to the Israeli airstrike on the Consulate General in Damascus, as well as to determine exactly how to “punish the aggressor.”
Earlier, American media, citing Iranian and American intelligence sources, reported that Iran plans to strike dozens of sensitive targets in Israel, including energy infrastructure and various other facilities, using ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones.