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Israel is preparing for the possibility of Iran and Hezbollah launching a multi-day attack on Israeli territory in response to the assassinations of Hamas’s political chief in Tehran and a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut,” NBC News reported on Sunday.

Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel in April in response to the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, but US and Israeli officials expect this attack to be bigger. “They’ll just try to wear us out,” one Israeli official told NBC.

Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese news outlet, reported that the Israeli assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian territory crossed a “red line” and that Iran would reciprocate. “Iran will respond in a way that crosses the red lines set by the Israeli occupation,” an Iranian source told Al Mayadeen.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran told Arab diplomats it didn’t care if its response to Israel triggered a war.

Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of US Central Command, is in the Middle East helping Israel prepare for the Iranian attack, which US and Israeli officials believe could happen as soon as Monday. President Biden has pledged the US will help defend Israel, and the Pentagon announced it was deploying more military capabilities to the region for that purpose.

Since the US is pledging direct military intervention to protect Israel, it’s possible US bases in Iraq and Syria could also come under attack by Iraqi Shia militias that are allied with Iran. Yemen’s Houthis could also get in on the attack on Israel, as they recently hit Tel Aviv with a drone.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Israel will hit back against any reprisal attack by Iran and its allies. “Israel is now in a multifront war against the Iranian axis of evil,” he said on Sunday. “We are ready for any scenario—either defensive or offensive. I repeat to our enemies: We will respond and exact a heavy price for any act of aggression against us, from any arena.”

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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Saturday that Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by a “short-range projectile” in Tehran, contradicting reports that he was killed by a planted explosive.

According to Iran’s PressTV, the IIGC said the “attack involved the use of a short-range projectile armed with a warhead weighing approximately seven kilograms, which subsequently caused a massive explosion.”

Haniyeh was killed while staying at a heavily guarded official guest house in Tehran during a visit for the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The New York Times and several other Western media reported he was killed by an explosive that was planted in the guest house by Israeli intelligence months earlier, but Hamas officials and eyewitnesses say a projectile hit the building.

“I was there, and the wall and ceiling of the place where he was were collapsed. It is clear from the appearance of the place after the attack, and from the body of the martyr leader Ismail Haniyeh, that the targeting was carried out by an air-dropped projectile,” Khaled Kaddoumi, Hamas’s representative in Iran, told The Cradle.

Discussing the reports of a bomb being planted in the building, Kaddoumi said, “The narrative published by The New York Times about Mossad agents planting explosive devices inside the apartment where Haniyeh stayed is completely fabricated … They are trying to evade responsibility and its consequences for Israel.”

Israel has a history of conducting covert attacks and assassinations inside Iran. Operations in recent years have involved gunmen, small quadcopter drones, and planted explosives at nuclear facilities.

Iran is vowing revenge for the killing of Haniyeh, and a major attack on Israeli territory is expected to happen soon. The US has deployed more military assets to the region and has said it will help defend Israel from any reprisal.

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