Tel Aviv, Apr 15 (IANS): After thwarting a major Iranian attack on its soil, the Israeli government wants the world to recognise Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terror outfit.
The IRGC is directly under the supervision of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Israel seeks a severe diplomatic attack against Iran.
Israel Foreign Minister Israel Katz has, according to sources in the foreign ministry, spoken to British and French counterparts about this.
The Israel side has raised several charges against IRGC, including that it was involved in all the proxy attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis.
According to sources in the Israel Prime Minister’s Office, a meeting of the war cabinet has finalised a counterattack against Iran and all the five members were for a retaliation.
However, the timing of the attack has not been finalised and Israel is trying to build up an international diplomatic offensive against Iran. The Israel foreign ministry’s move to push countries to recognise IRGC as a terror outfit is aimed at such a diplomatic initiative.
A former Major General of Israel’s external agency Mossad, who was involved in several operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah, while speaking to IANS said that Iran won’t attack Israel with full might and that the attacks on Sunday were just to convince its proxies that it could stage an attack.
He said that Israel was ‘deep inside Iran’ which means that Israel knows the real capabilities of Iran and that there could be serious repercussions if it tries to attack Israel in a more serious tone. He added that Iran knows this.
Hebrew and Arabic media have reported that Israel was preparing for a retaliation and the timing and the manner is not yet clear.
The current spate of attacks was the result of an Israel airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria on April 1 leading to the killing of seven top officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Brigade General Mohammed Reza Zahedi who was with the Quds Force, the foreign arm of IRGC and a top-ranked military officer of Iran.
The Israeli side has alleged that Reza Zahedi was involved in supplying arms and ammunition to Hezbollah, which has been designated as a terror outfit by Israel.