The US Embassy in Jerusalem has imposed travel restrictions on diplomats living in Israel as officials fear an Iranian attack with 100 drones and dozens of missiles.
An Iranian attack would be retaliation for an April 1 attack on a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, for which Israel has not claimed responsibility.
On Friday, the White House stopped short of saying an attack was “imminent,” instead calling the threat “viable.”
“We still consider the potential threat from Iran here to be real, viable, certainly credible and we are watching it as closely as we can,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday. on a Zoom call.
Kirby added that the United States was in “constant communication with our Israeli counterparts to ensure that they can defend themselves against those types of attacks.”
The US Embassy in Jerusalem has imposed travel restrictions on diplomats living in Israel as officials fear an Iranian attack with 100 drones and dozens of missiles.
Iranians burn an Israeli flag during a demonstration commemorating Quds Day and the funeral of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, week pass.
The NSC spokesperson did not give details about the possible timing of such an attack.
“I really don’t want to get on the couch discussing this publicly in terms of the conversations we’re having or what we’re seeing in the intelligence landscape,” Kirby said.
He also did not specifically say whether the United States would help Israel shoot down Iranian drones.
“I think you can understand, or at least I hope you can understand, why I’m not going to get into the details of our commitment that helps Israel defend itself,” Kirby said.
On Thursday, the US embassy in Jerusalem did not explicitly mention Iran, but issued a warning to government workers.
“Out of an abundance of caution, US government employees and their family members are restricted from personal travel outside the metropolitan areas of Tel Aviv,…Jerusalem and Beer Sheva until further notice,” the security alert said.
The April 1 attack in Damascus killed two senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and five other officers, Iran said.
Israel has yet to publicly take responsibility.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that senior Pentagon officials were frustrated that the United States did not receive warning from Israel before carrying out an airstrike on the Iranian site.
Three unnamed U.S. officials told the newspaper that Defense Secretary Lloyd Ausin and other senior defense officials believed Israel should have informed the Pentagon before the attack because of the attack’s implications for the U.S. military in the region.
Had the United States received warning, the Pentagon would have been able to increase its defense capabilities to resist Iranian retaliation, the sources said.