Iran vowed on Friday to avenge Israel’s killing of top commanders and other officers of its elite Quds Force, at a public funeral held for the dead, raising fears of open war but did not say how it will retaliate or when.
US officials in Washington and the Middle East said on Friday they were preparing for possible Iranian retaliation for Monday’s Israeli airstrike on Damascus, Syria. US military forces in the region have been placed on heightened alert. Israel also put its military on high alert, according to an Israeli official, canceled vacations for combat units, sent some reservists back to air defense units and blocked GPS signals.
Two Iranian officials who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly said Iran had put all of its armed forces on full high alert and that a decision had been made that Iran should respond directly to the attack. attack on Damascus to create deterrence.
“Our brave people will punish the Zionist regime,” said Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, to a crowd in Tehran attending the funeral of officers killed in Damascus. “We warn that no action by any enemy against our holy system will go unanswered and the art of the Iranian nation is to destroy the power of empires.”
The Israeli airstrike hit a building that was part of the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, killing three generals and four other Quds Force officers. The force, an arm of the Revolutionary Guards, conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran, often working closely with allies opposed to Israel and the United States, including Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, said Thursday that he would give interviews to US news outlets “after Iran’s response to Israel.”
There are precedents for a strong Iranian response. Four years ago, after the United States killed the head of the Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran fired missiles at US bases in Iraq, injuring more than 100 troops.
Although its proxy militias around the Middle East have launched several attacks on Israel since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, Iran has been careful to avoid a direct conflict. could lead to all-out war.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, delivered a video speech that was broadcast in Iran and in Lebanon during the funeral, saying that a response from Iran could come at any time and that “we must be ready for all events.”
“Ensure that Iran’s response to targeting Damascus will inevitably come,” Mr. Nasrallah said.
In the past few months, Israel has killed at least 18 members of the Quds Force, among them four senior commanders who are veterans of wars in the Middle East, according to Iranian media. But the Damascus airstrike was far from out of the ordinary, both in killing so many senior figures at once and in hitting a diplomatic building, which is usually considered the limits of conflicts. Israeli officials said the building functioned as a Revolutionary Guards base and was therefore a legitimate target.
The building houses the official residence of Iran’s ambassador to Syria, who told state television that he and his family had left the building when it was hit.
The final decision on something as important as a strike against Israel rests with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is also the commander in chief of the armed forces. Mr. Khamenei ordered the attack in 2020 in retaliation for the assassination of General Suleimani.
US military analysts estimate that Iran is more likely to attack Israel itself than its proxies to attack US troops in the region, including Iraq and Syria, as they have done more than 170 times in four months after the Hamas-led attack on October 7 against Israel. Those attacks against American targets stopped in early February, but Pentagon officials said they were monitoring the situation closely.
An Israeli defense official said Israeli analysts had reached the same conclusion, that Iran would attack itself and not act through Hezbollah, its closest militant ally, which engages in regular exchanges of fire. with Israeli forces since the start of the war.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ahead of a security cabinet meeting about a potential Iranian attack, said Thursday, “We will know how to defend ourselves and we will act according to the simple principle of whoever gets hurt to us or intending to hurt us – we will hurt them.”
Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the top US Air Force commander in the Middle East, told the Defense Writers Group in Washington this week.: “From a military perspective, the biggest concern that I have is, is this leading to some kind of regional escalation? We’re watching carefully, we’re listening to what the Iranians in terms of how they intend to respond.
“I continue to assess that the Iranians are not interested in a wider conflict in the region,” he added. “They want to take advantage of the crisis while it exists, but they are not interested in war with Israel, war with the United States or war with anyone now.”
The funeral ceremony in Tehran on Friday coincided with the annual Quds Day rally, a show of solidarity with the Palestinians held on the last Friday of Ramadan in many Muslim countries. People chanted, “Death to Israel,” and “Death to America,” and waved the Palestinian flag. In videos shown on state news media, an angry man stomped on an effigy of Mr. Netanyahu.
Quds Day rallies, held in many cities across Iran, attract families with children and often have a carnival-like atmosphere. But this year, the event appeared more somber, overshadowed by the funeral, the increased tension with Israel and fears that a response from Iran could start a war between the two countries.
Iran’s president, Ibrahim Raisi, and the commander in chief of the Quds Force, General Ismail Ghaani, dressed in black civilian clothes rather than uniform, marched with crowds of mourners in Tehran, state media showed . Also present were Ziyad al-Nakhaleh, the leader of Islamic Palestinian Jihad, and Abu Fadak al-Muhammadawi, the leader of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, a Shia militia aligned with Iran.
The coffins of the slain Quds Force officers, wrapped in the Iranian flag and placed on the back of trucks decorated with flowers and green leaves, slowly made their way down a long road in downtown Tehran, where gathered thousands of people.
The night before, the coffins were brought to the residential compound of Mr. Khamenei, the supreme leader, and placed in an open hall where he performed Muslim prayers for their dead. The ayatollah usually makes such awards only for very close associates and senior officials who have been declared “martyrs” because they were killed by Israel or the United States.
Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
