Closing summary
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Israeli war planes destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, killing at least seven people. Iran’s ambassador to Syria, who had been working at the nearby embassy, said the consulate in the Syrian capital had been hit by six missiles launched by F-35 jets.
At least seven people were killed by the Damascus attack, including a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds force, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and his deputy Haji Rahimi. Five other Iranian officers were killed, the IRGC said.
Iran vowed revenge for the attack. Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said: “We consider this aggression to have violated all diplomatic norms and international treaties.” Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, said Iran’s response for the strike would be “at the same magnitude and harshness”.
The attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus came just days after Israel carried out its deadliest strikes in months on Syria’s Aleppo province, killing 53 people, including 38 soldiers and seven members of Hezbollah. Israel as a rule does not comment on its assassination strikes.
The Biden administration is close to approving a major new weapons sale to Israel worth more than $18bn that will include up to 50 US-made F-15 fighter jets, according to a report. The transaction would amount to the largest US foreign military sale to Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
At least 32,845 Palestinians have been killed and 75,392 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday. There have been 63 Palestinians killed and 94 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.
Israeli forces announced their withdrawal from al-Shifa hospital in Gaza on Monday after a two-week raid, amid claims from Hamas that the Israel Defense Forces killed 400 people in the compound and allegations from the Palestinian Red Crescent of torture and “executions”.
Senior US and Israeli officials held a virtual meeting to discuss the Biden administration’s alternative proposals to an Israeli military invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. “If they are going to move forward with a military operation, we have to have this conversation,” the White House said.
The meeting between senior US and Israeli officials came after Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington last week by a senior Israeli delegation after the US allowed passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the UN on Monday.
The Israeli parliament approved a law that grants senior ministers powers to shut down foreign news networks deemed a security risk, after its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pledged swift action to halt Al Jazeera’s activities in the nation. The White House described reports that Israel is trying to shut down Al Jazeera as “concerning”.
Updated
Reuters is also reporting that the Biden administration is considering a major $18bn package of arms transfers to Israel that would involve dozens of F-15 aircraft and munitions.
The sale of 25 F-15s from Boeing to Israel has been under review since the US received the formal request in January 2023, it said, citing sources.
Updated
US to approve $18bn sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel - report
The Biden administration is close to approving a major new weapons sale to Israel worth more than $18bn that will include up to 50 US-made F-15 fighter jets, according to a report.
The transaction would amount to the largest US foreign military sale to Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza, CNN reported, citing sources.
It comes as the Biden administration is also expected to notify Congress soon of a large new sale of precision-guided munitions to Israel, it said.
The sale would include up to 50 new F-15 jets, 30 Aim-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, and a number of joint direct attack munition kits, which turn dumb bombs into precision-guided weapons, Politico reported.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke with the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, today.
During the call, Blinken reiterated that the US “looks forward to working with the new PA cabinet to promote peace, security, and prosperity” and “emphasised that a revitalised PA is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza,” a statement from the US state department reads.
Blinken also stressed Washington “continues its urgent work of advancing a ceasefire as part of a hostage deal”, it said. The statement continued:
[Blinken] also underscored the US commitment to the realisation of the creation of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel.
Updated
Israeli war planes have destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing at least seven people, including a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds force.
Here’s our video report:
Israeli war planes destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, killing at least seven people, including a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds force.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, said the consulate in the Syrian capital had been hit by six missiles launched by F-35 jets, killing seven people, including three military personnel.
Akbari, who had been working at the nearby embassy, vowed Iran would continue to support Palestinians in Gaza, and had no fear of the Israeli government.
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An official statement by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) named the seven members who were killed in the consulate attack in Damascus.
The two senior Iranian commanders killed were:
Mohammad Reza Zahedi: commanded units from the Quds forces in Lebanon and Syria
Sardar Haji Rahimi: Zahedi’s deputy
Five Iranian officials were also killed in the attack, it said. They were named as:
Hossein Aman Elahi
Sayid Mehdi Jalalati
Mohsen Sedaghat
Ali Agha Babaei
Sayid Ali Salehi Roozbahani
Updated
Iran's Revolutionary Guard says two of its generals and five Iranian officers killed in consulate attack
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard has said seven of its members were killed in an airstrike that struck Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
Two Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) generals and five Iranian officers were killed in the attack on Monday, it said in a statement.
The two IRGC commanders have been named as Brig Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy, Sardar Haji Rahimi.
The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has described reports that Israel is trying to shut down Al Jazeera as “concerning”.
Here’s a clip from the White House briefing earlier:
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Iran has said several long-serving diplomats had been killed alongside Brig Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi in the attack.
Among those reported to be killed was Zahedi’s deputy, Sardar Haji Rahimi.
Monday afternoon’s strike removed a key figure in Iran’s military heirarchy. Zahedi commanded units from the Quds forces – the Guards’ clandestine foreign intelligence and paramilitary wing – in Lebanon and Syria and would have been a critical figure in Tehran’s relationship with Hezbollah and Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
Zahedi would have been at the heart of the supply of Iranian-made missiles to Hezbollah, and was sanctioned by the US as long ago as 2010.
Previously, he had been head of Iran’s air force and ground forces, as well as playing a role in crushing the Iranian protests in 2019.
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Iran will 'reciprocate when we want' to Damascus consulate attack, says ambassador
Hossein Akbari, the Iranian ambassador in Syria, has said Tehran “will reciprocate when we want” to what he described as the “extreme brutality” of the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Posting to social media, Akbari wrote:
With extreme brutality, contrary to all international conventions, they targeted my place of residence and the consular section of the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran; We will reciprocate when we want.
با نهایت وحشیگری بر خلاف تمامی کنوانسیون های بین المللی محل اقامت اینجانب و بخش کنسولی سفارت را به همراه #وابستگان_نظامی رسمی جمهوری اسلامی ایران هدف قرار دادند؛
— Hossein Akbari-حسین اکبری🇮🇷 (@Ambassador_HA) April 1, 2024
ما در وقتی که میخواهیم مقابله به مثل خواهیم کرد.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Tehran reserves the right to take reciprocal actions against the Israel attack.
Iran will decide on “the type of response and punishment against the aggressor”, Kanaani said.
Senior US and Israeli officials have completed a virtual meeting to discuss the Biden administration’s alternative proposals to an Israeli military invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a US official has said.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House’s press secretary, said at a briefing before the meeting that the US has made its concerns known about any major ground operation in Rafah, the last relatively safe haven for more than a million displaced Palestinian civilians. She told reporters:
If they are going to move forward with a military operation, we have to have this conversation. We have to understand how they’re going to move forward.
The officials are also going to discuss “alternative ways of going after Hamas”, she said.
The White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, would lead the discussions on the US side, she added.
Updated
The attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus comes just days after Israel carried out its deadliest strikes in months on Syria’s Aleppo province, killing more than 40 people, including members of Hezbollah and a large number of Syrian soldiers.
As many as 42 people were killed on Friday in what contradictory reports described as air and drone strikes that hit missile depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near Aleppo’s international airport, and a nearby town that houses a military facility.
According to reports, at least 36 Syrian soldiers and six Hezbollah fighters were killed in the strikes, and dozens more people injured.
There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials. Israel frequently launches strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria but rarely acknowledges them.
Iran holds Israel responsible for consequences of Damascus attack - report
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has said he holds Israel responsible for the consequences of the attack on its consulate in Damascus, Reuters said that Iran’s state media reported.
The strike on the Iranian consulate is “a breach of all international conventions”, he told his Syrian counterpart in a phone call, it was reported.
Iran says senior Revolutionary Guards commander killed in strike
Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was killed in the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus on Monday, according to multiple reports.
Iranian state television has said that the attack on the consulate was an assassination attempt targeting Zahedi.
Zahedi was the commander of the IRGC “Quds Force” in Syria and Lebanon, and was the key Iranian military official in charge of relations with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the pro-Iranian militias in Syria.
Zahedi is the most senior IRGC officer killed since the assassination of Qassem Suleimani by a US airstrike in January 2020, Axios reported.
An Israel strike in Damascus killed Mohammad Reza Zahedi, Hossein Amir Allah, and Hajj Rahimi. With this attack, Iran took its biggest losses in Syria in a long time. pic.twitter.com/iAjvnsM1qb
— Levent Kemal (@leventkemaI) April 1, 2024
Emergency services have been working at the scene of the site in the Mezzeh district of Damascus, where several people have been killed after Israeli warplanes destroyed the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital.
Reporters at the scene saw smoke rising from the rubble of a building that had been flattened, and emergency vehicles parked outside.
Netanyahu vows to shut down Al Jazeera
The Israeli parliament approved a law that grants senior ministers powers to shut down foreign news networks deemed a security risk, after its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has pledged swift action to halt Al Jazeera’s activities in the nation.
“Al Jazeera will no longer be broadcast from Israel,” Netanyahu wrote in a post on X after the law was approved in its final readings on Monday.
I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activity.
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Biden 'aware of reports of Israeli strike on Iranian consulate'
The US president, Joe Biden, is aware of reports of Israeli airstrikes in Damascus striking an Iranian consulate on Monday and the “team is looking into it”, the White House’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, said.
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Syria’s foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, and Iran’s ambassador in Syria, Hossein Akbari, visited the site of the strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
Iranian state television said the Iranian ambassador’s residence was in the consular building, which stood next to the embassy.
Akbari has condemned Israel and said as many as seven people were killed in the strike, but first responders were still searching for bodies under the rubble.
Two police officers who guard the building were wounded, Akbari added.
Updated
Israeli airstrike hits Iran's consulate in Damascus
Israeli warplanes have destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing several people including a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Among those killed was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported. Iranian state television said several Iranian diplomats had been killed.
The Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers were both seen at the scene.
Israel, which has repeatedly hit Iranian targets during the war in Gaza, declined to comment on the incident. An Israeli military spokesperson said:
We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.
We’ll bring you more updates as they come.
