Washington-based Al-Monitor cited a senior Israeli political source as saying that if Iran employs its proxies — among them Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthi rebels in Yemen — to launch rockets, cruise missiles or drones at Israel, “the event could be contained.”
“But if Iran launches missiles at Israel from its territory, there will undoubtedly be a broad Israeli response against Iran itself, which could lead to a comprehensive and rapid deterioration into war in the Middle East.”
“Western intelligence agencies apparently have intelligence indicating that the Iranian attack will take place in the coming days,” the source told Al-Monitor, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The effort now is to clarify to Iran the outlines that will allow the sides to exit this event without deteriorating into all-out war.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had yet to decide among the various options presented to him.
France has issued a travel advisory today, urging its citizens “imperatively” to refrain from traveling to Iran – as well as nearby Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.
The warning comes amid Tehran's threats of retaliation, after a widely-believed Israeli attack on Iranian consulate premises in Damascus on April 1, which killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guards Commanders.
French Foreign Minister, Stephane Sejourne, has meanwhile called for the evacuation of the family members of French diplomats in Iran – and for no French civil servants to be deployed to any of the listed countries.
Britain, Canada, and Australia have also issued travel advisories urging their citizens to refrain from visiting Iran, Israel, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
This week, German airline Lufthansa extended its suspension of its flights to Tehran due to the situation in the Middle East.
The conflict ignited by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7 has intensified regional volatility to levels not seen in years – and has brought the shadow war between Iran and Israel to the forefront today.
The US on Friday deployed a "missile ship with advanced defense capabilities" near the Israeli shores in order to "help Israel in case it is attacked with missiles by Iran in the near future," Israel's Channel 14 reported.
Ultraconservative Iranian propagandist Ali-Akbar Raefipour on Friday hinted that the Islamic Republic might have adopted a strategy of attrition against Israel.
He tweeted: “The Zionist enemy has been on full alert for almost a week. Key figures are in shelters, and many sensitive buildings have been evacuated.
The Islamic Republic's goal is not a symbolic response. Until significant and key military-political figures of the regime become victims, the issue will not be resolved, so be patient. This expectation makes each second more terrifying for the Zionists.”
Argentina’s highest criminal court has ruled that Iran ordered the deadly 1992 attack on Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 attack on AMIA Jewish community center, which killed more than 100 people.
Describing the attack on the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish center as a “crime against humanity,” Argentina’s Court of Cassation deemed Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, responsible for the bombing and declared Iran a “terrorist state.”
In 1992, a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy left 29 dead. Two years later, a truck loaded with explosives drove into the AMIA Jewish center and detonated, leaving 85 dead and 300 injured – the deadliest terror act in Argentina’s history.
“The significance of these grave human rights violations for the international community as a whole invokes a state’s duty to provide judicial protection,” the ruling said.
The court also highlighted the role of the Iran-backed Shiite militia group Hezbollah for the attack. "Hezbollah carried out an operation that responded to a political, ideological and revolutionary design under the mandate of a government, of a State," Carlos Mahiques, one of the three judges who issued the decision, told Radio Con Vos, referring to Iran.
A man walks past a banner reading "Memory and justice" and the names of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) community centre a day after Argentina's highest criminal court blamed Iran for the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 12, 2024.
According to court documents cited by local media, the attacks came in retaliation for Argentina reneging on a nuclear cooperation deal with Tehran. Argentina canceled three contracts in the mid-1980s that would have supplied Tehran with nuclear technology.
The AMIA attack has never been claimed by any group or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah group carried it out at Iran's orders. In 2006, Argentinian courts pressed charges against eight present and former high-ranking Iranian officials, alongside a Lebanese national, in connection with the attack. Interpol arrest warrants for the convicted officials have led nowhere.
Citing confidential intelligence reports, the court directly implicated top Iranian officials and commanders of the Revolutionary Guard in the bombings.
In 2007, Interpol General Assembly upheld the unanimous decision made by the organization’s Executive Committee to publish six out of nine Red Notices requested in connection with the AMIA.
Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi (left) and Mohsen Rezaei, a former chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards
The notices were requested by the Argentinean National Central Bureau (NCB) for Imad Fayez Moughnieh, the number two in Iran-backed Hezbollah, Iran’s Former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, Cleric Mohsen Rabbani – known as the chief architect of Iran's Latin American missionary network -- Iranian diplomat Ahmad Reza Asghari – aka Hamid-Reza Es’hagi and Moshen Ranjbaran. Revolutionary Guards commander and incumbent Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi as well as President Ebrahim Raisi’s former vice president for economic affairs, Revolutionary Guard’s commander Mohsen Rezaei (Rezai), were also among them.
Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, with some 300,000 members. It also is home to immigrant communities from the Middle East, particularly from Syria and Lebanon.
The ruling of the Thursday court session was welcomed by the president of the Delegation of Israelite Associations of Argentina (DAIA), Jorge Knoblovits. He told Radio Mitre the ruling "is very important, because it enables the victims to go to the International Criminal Court."
Past inquiries into the bombings have turned up indictments, not just against Iranian officials but also two former Argentine presidents. In 2015, the chief prosecutor in the case was mysteriously found dead in his bathroom the day before he was to go public with claims that top Argentine officials had conspired with Iran to cover up responsibility for the bombing.
Former Argentine president Carlos Menem, who died in 2021 and was the president at the time of both attacks, was tried for covering up the AMIA bombing, but ultimately acquitted. His former intelligence chief Hugo Anzorreguy was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for his role in obstructing the probe. Along with a dozen other defendants, he faced a multitude of corruption and obstruction of justice charges in the case. Among them was Juan Jose Galeano, the former judge who led the investigation into the attack. In 2019, Galeano was jailed for six years for concealing and tampering with evidence.
