Israel is preparing for challenges outside of Gaza Benjamin Netanyahu has said, amid concern Tehran is preparing to retaliate after a strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria.
The airstrike on the embassy compound in Damascus killed a senior general and six other Iranian officers on April 1, raising the alert for retaliation.
Israel has not said it was responsible but Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday Israel "must be punished and it shall be" for the attack.
Speaking to broadcasters on Thursday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned the Ayatollah's comments, saying they were "unacceptable" as he reaffirmed the UK's support for Tel Aviv's right to defend itself.Netanyahu said his nation was “prepared to meet all of the security needs of the State of Israel” as troops and warplanes started an operation in central Gaza overnight which the military said was aimed at destroying infrastructure of armed Palestinian groups.
During a visit to the Tel Nof air force base in southern Israel Netanyahu said: “We are in challenging times. We are in the middle of the war in Gaza that continues at full force, at the same time we continue our nonstop efforts to return our hostages.
“But we are also preparing for scenarios of challenges from other arenas. We established a simple principle - Whoever hurts us, we will hurt them.
“We are prepared to meet all of the security needs of the State of Israel, both defensively and offensively."
Most Israeli troops have been pulled out of Gaza in preparation for an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah where more than 1m Palestinians are sheltering. But fighting has continued in various areas of the enclave.
Meanwhile Germany's Lufthansa extended a suspension of its flights to Tehran on Thursday with the Middle East on alert for an Iranian retaliation.
Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines are the only two Western carriers flying into Tehran, which is mostly served by Turkish and Middle Eastern airlines.
The region and the United States have been on alert for an attack by Iran since April 1, when Israeli warplanes are suspected to have bombed the Iranian embassy compound in Syria.
It comes as US President Joe Biden demanded that Israel call off the war in Gaza for up to eight weeks to allow “total access” of much-needed aid into the shattered territory.
Following weeks of tension with Netanyahu, Biden issued some of his most direct language yet in calling the Israeli prime minister's approach to the war a “mistake”.
