The United States dispatched additional warplanes and ships to the Middle East amid heightened concerns about an imminent Iranian strike against Israel and potential increased violence that could affect American troops in the region, U.S. officials said Friday.
Tehran has blamed Israel for the April 1 strike on an Iranian site in Syria that killed two Iranian military commanders, and has vowed revenge. Israel has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attack.
“I am certain that the world sees the true face of Iran,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday, according to a statement from the ministry. “We are prepared to defend ourselves on the ground and in the air,” he said.
The move reflects the Biden administration’s concern that its support for Israel’s war in Gaza could spark wider violence in the Middle East. President Biden told reporters Friday that he expected an attack on Israel to come “sooner rather than later.” When asked what his message was to Iran, he replied: “Don’t.”
Threats from Iran — including a statement from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, that Israel would “regret this crime” — prompted the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem to issue a security alert restricting the movement of government employees and their families.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin complained to his Israeli counterpart that Israel did not notify Washington before the Syria strike, an escalation the Pentagon sees as increasing risks to U.S. forces in the Middle East, The Washington Post reported.
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Jacob Toukhy, a staff member of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s mission in the West Bank and Gaza, was killed Friday near his home in Israel, according to an internal memo seen by The Washington Post. USAID is working with the U.S. Embassy to ascertain details about the death, the agency said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society accused Israeli forces of firing bullets at one of its ambulances in the West Bank on Friday. The society also said Israeli forces assaulted one of its volunteer paramedics, who was later released and transferred to a hospital. The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Turkish state-run broadcaster TRT said Friday that two of its journalists were injured while reporting in Gaza after they were struck by Israeli fire. Sami Shehadeh, a freelance cameraman for TRT’s Arabic channel, was “grievously injured,” it said, adding that doctors had amputated one of his feet. Zahid Sobaci, TRT’s director general, said in a message on social media that a second journalist, Sami Barhum, was in good condition.
The Israeli military said Friday that trucks transporting food entered through a new aid crossing into northern Gaza. Israel announced the route this week in the face of international pressure to stave off famine in the besieged enclave. It was not clear how much aid went in.
At least 33,634 people have been killed and 76,214 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants and says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 260 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.
Dan Lamothe, Bryan Pietsch and John Hudson contributed to this report.
