Quds Force

Israel will consider the United States's opinion but will act against an Iranian missile attack based on its own "national interests", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Tuesday.

The comments came as a top Iranian commander, whose absence sparked rumors that he could have been killed in an Israeli strike, appeared in public for the first time in weeks.

Iranian state television today featured a man who appeared to be the high-ranking commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Ismail Qaani, in a ceremony for a Revolutionary Guards of Iran commander killed in Lebanon.

Ismail Qaani first became known to the wider Western public in 2020 when he was chosen to replace Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by an American drone outside Baghdad Airport.

Israel‘s fighter jets that took off late yesterday afternoon from bases in the south of the country struck Syrian territory again as they did two days ago.

The Israeli military claimed it targeted Hezbollah weapons depots after carrying out more than 30 strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, in what Lebanese media described as “the most violent night” of attacks.

President Joe Biden on Saturday lauded American forces who helped Israel down "nearly all" of the drones and missiles fired by Iran and vowed to coordinate a global response to Tehran's unprecedented attack. And the Pentagon said its forces intercepted "dozens of missiles" and drones launched from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen that were headed toward Israel.

Thousands of people chanted against Israel and the United States at Friday's funeral for seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals, who were killed in an air strike in Syria, which Iran blamed on Israel.

An Israeli airstrike targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, resulting in fatalities, including Mohammed Zahedi, a high-ranking commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, according to Tehran's state media. The consulate, situated in Damascus' Mezeh district, was completely demolished in the attack.

Israeli media report that high-ranking officials in their country have pointed to the Quds Force, one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence, is behind the foiled plot to bomb a Jewish restaurant and an attached cultural and religious center in Athens.

Iran's supreme leader on Tuesday insisted negotiations over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal "are going ahead properly," even after repeated comments by American officials that an agreement to restore the accord may not happen.