Following an airstrike attributed to Israel on the Iranian regime’s consulate in Damascus, which resulted in the killing of several senior members of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the chargé d’affaires of the Swiss embassy as the representative of U.S. interests in Iran.
Hossein Amirabdollahian, the Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister, wrote on his X account on April 2, stating that “an important message has been sent to the U.S. government as a supporter of the Zionist regime.”
The Iranian Foreign Minister emphasized that “The US must be held accountable.”
This comes as Israel’s Defense Minister, in the first indirect response to the attack attributed to the country against the Iranian consulate in Damascus, stated that Israel operates “everywhere” to deter its enemies.
Yoav Gallant told the Israeli parliamentary committee on foreign and defense affairs on Tuesday, April 2, that “we are engaged in a multi-front war. Every day, we conduct operations everywhere to prevent our enemies from gaining strength.”
Meanwhile, Axios cited an unnamed U.S. official as saying that the United States had told Iran it had no involvement or precise information about the Israeli attack.
The Israeli airstrike on the building of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, located near the Iranian embassy, resulted in the death of seven Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officers, including Mohammadreza Zahedi, one of its senior commanders and the head of Quds Force operations in Syria.
Hossein Akbari, Iran’s ambassador to Syria, stated that besides the seven Iranian military personnel killed, six others were also killed, whom he referred to as “Syrian citizens.”
Zahedi is a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Air Force and an active member of the Quds Force, responsible for leading this force in Syria and Lebanon.
Reactions of the Iranian regime’s authorities
Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Iranian regime, praised Mohammadreza Zahedi in a written message on Tuesday and wrote that Israel “will be punished by our brave men, and we will make them regret this crime and similar ones.”
Regime president Ebrahim Raisi also issued a statement calling the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus “blind terrorism” and addressing Israel, wrote, “this cowardly crime will not go unanswered.”
Axios, citing a senior Israeli official, wrote that the country’s military is on standby for potential retaliatory attacks against Iran-backed militias in Syria.
Israel claims the targeted building was a “legitimate military target.”
Meanwhile, The New York Times, citing “Israeli officials” and “a member of the IRGC overseeing the Quds Force,” wrote that Israel’s attack on a building affiliated with the Iranian regime in Damascus targeted a meeting where Iranian intelligence officials and Palestinian militants were supposed to discuss the Gaza conflict.
The New York Times report suggests that leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a group of Gaza militants supported by the Iranian government attended a meeting on Tuesday in the destroyed building.
Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the Secretary-General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was invited from Syria to Tehran last week for talks with Iranian regime officials and coordination regarding the continuation of the Gaza war, simultaneously with the visit of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, to Tehran.
Four Israeli officials, whose names were not mentioned by The New York Times, said that while their country conducted the airstrike operation, they denied the diplomatic status of the targeted building.
These officials also claimed that the building was under the control of the Revolutionary Guards and their activities, hence was considered a “legitimate military target.”
According to reports from Syrian media, Israeli missiles were fired from the “occupied Golan Heights,” and the Syrian air defense system intercepted some of the missiles, but the ones that hit caused “complete destruction of the building,” resulting in “all individuals inside being killed or wounded.”
Although Israel has been targeting “Iranian-affiliated targets” for over a decade to prevent Iran’s military consolidation and its allies in Syria, this is the first time that buildings affiliated with the Iranian regime’s consulate have been directly targeted by Israel, indicating a noticeable escalation in Israel’s operations against the Iranian government in the region.
