Tehran has vowed that vengeance is coming soon for the Monday Israeli airstrike on its embassy in Damascus.\u00a0Most pundits believe this will take the form of ballistic missiles raining down on Israeli cities<\/strong>. But Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly vowing that if the Islamic Republic launches missiles from its soil it\u00a0will ensure<\/a>\u00a0“a strong response”<\/strong>\u00a0from Israel.<\/p>\n Israeli officials have told\u00a0Axios<\/em>\u00a0late in the day that such an act would\u00a0“take the current conflict to another level<\/strong>”\u00a0<\/strong><\/b>\u2014\u00a0<\/em>which most certainly would involve a direct Israel-Iran war and thus the eruption of a broader regional conflict.\u00a0Axios<\/em>\u00a0adds the following\u00a0observations<\/a>:<\/p>\n Netanyahu informed his security cabinet Thursday that Israel’s forces have already been engaged with Iran\u00a0“both directly and via its proxies, and therefore Israel is operating against Iran and its proxies, both defensively and offensively.”<\/p>\n A statement issued by the prime minister’s office laid out: “We will know how to defend ourselves and will operate according to the basic principle of whoever is harming or planning to harm us \u2014 we will harm him.” The White House has meanwhile issued a statement shortly after Biden and Netanyahu discussed the Gaza crisis, saying\u00a0“President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those [Iranian] threats.”<\/p>\n There have meanwhile been unverified reports to emerge saying that the\u00a0CIA has warned Israel to expect an attack from Iran within the next 48 hours<\/strong>, which has also been picked up in\u00a0Israeli press<\/a>.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n At this point Israel’s ties with key Gulf countries like the UAE are near breaking point, after only a few short years ago diplomatic normalization was hailed through Trump’s Abraham accords. But international and Israeli press reports are confirming the UAE has announced it is\u00a0halting all coordination on humanitarian aid with Israel<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Further, as Israeli media\u00a0reports<\/a>: “The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced a suspension of diplomatic coordination with Israel in the wake of the death of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers in Gaza.” Simultaneously, Israel is busy\u00a0putting its embassies across the world on high security alert\u00a0<\/strong>due to the “heightened Iranian response threat” in wake of Monday’s Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus. All of this served to send Brent soaring in the last two hours, with Brent spiking above $90 for the first time since October….<\/p>\n … and sending stocks tumbling to session lows.<\/p>\n With Iran vowing that its retaliation is coming at any moment, Israel’s military is scrambling for readiness, with the latest measure being to\u00a0pause all\u00a0home leave for all combat troops<\/strong>.<\/p>\n “The IDF is at war and the issue of the deployment of forces is constantly reviewed as needed,” the Israeli military said.<\/p>\n President Biden is\u00a0meanwhile<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0said to be “pissed” with PM Netanyahu\u00a0<\/strong>over the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, though Israel acknowledged that it was a “grave mistake”.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/israelf16s.jpg?itok=GvePy5z1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/oiljumps.png?itok=PraDWal3\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/GKV3mFIXQAA6rf5_0.jpg?itok=dqAZ8xHR\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n