Iran has published a notice to airlines and national aviation authorities to avoid its airspace amid increasing threats to strike Israel.
According to the report, the notification from Tehran about its airspace is typically used by aviation authorities to provide essential real-time information to pilots that wasn't known in advance.
It is essentially a stay-away message to commercial and civilian aviation without any indication of what may follow.
This warning comes amid a notification from United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven bloc warning them that Tehran could conduct strikes against Israel this week.
Although Blinken didn't say what form an attack Iran could take, he advised the ministers that U.S. officials have been working with their international partners to try to contain tensions in the Middle East amid warnings by Iran and pro-Iranian militias that they will attack Israel following the assassinations of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran and senior Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut. (Related: U.S. on high alert as Iran’s proxies threaten retaliation following Israeli strikes.)
According to a diplomat briefed on the situation who spoke with the Wall Street Journal, Blinken told the foreign minister that if Iran's retaliation against Israel is of a similar scale to April's attack, it could close off any future peaceful engagement between Iran and the United States.
In a recent gathering of foreign diplomats in Tehran, Iranian Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri-Kani criticized the complicity of the U.S. and some European countries in supporting Israel.
"Such aggression cannot go unanswered," Bagheri-Kani told the diplomats. "The Islamic Republic's response will be definitive and decisive."
An Arab diplomat said an Iranian official had bared that an attack could occur "imminently." Iran rejected recent entreaties from the U.S. and Arab states for Tehran to temper its response to the recent assassinations against Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
Israeli assassination targeted loudest voice within Hamas leadership calling for a ceasefire
In a divided Hamas, political leader Haniyeh was the strongest voice advocating for a ceasefire, clashing at times with other Hamas officials in heated discussions since the war in Gaza began.
A targeted strike in Tehran killed Haniyeh after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian, an attack that could give Hamas' hardliners more sway and further complicate ceasefire discussions.
It was reported that the strike was one of two outside of Gaza targeting Hamas and Hezbollah officials after a blast killed a dozen young people at a soccer field in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights.
The announcement of Haniyeh’s death came hours after Israel admitted to killing Shukr in Beirut, a strike that already risked further expanding the war in Gaza beyond the strip to the wider Middle East. Israel hasn't commented on Haniyeh's killing.
Israel is currently bracing for an attack by Iran, which Iranian officials have vowed to launch in retaliation for the assassination of Haniyeh. Tel Aviv has neither confirmed nor denied involvement but said it is prepared to defend against and respond to any retaliatory strike. Washington has said it would help defend the Jewish state.
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