Israel prepares for likely retaliatory attack by Iran as tensions mount

As fears grow of an imminent attack, the Israel air force commander, Maj Gen Tomer Bar, issued an order forbidding career officers from travelling abroad for holidays, a day after it was reported that soldiers travelling in Georgia and Azerbaijan had been told to return to Israel immediately.

Earlier, the leaders of France, Germany and Britain called on Tehran to refrain from any retaliatory attacks that would further escalate regional tensions after the killing of Haniyeh, and of a Hezbollah leader in Beirut last month.

The rapidly rising tensions have been driven by remarks by Iranian and Israeli officials that Tehran was on the brink of a large-scale retaliatory attack.

Axios reported that the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, had told the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, in a conversation on Sunday that Iran was preparing for a large-scale military attack on Israel within days.

The US military had already said it would deploy additional fighter jets and navy warships to the Middle East as Washington seeks to bolster Israeli defences.

The growing fear of an Iranian attack has caused a number of international airlines to cancel flights to the region.

On Monday, the German airline Lufthansa said it was extending the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran, Beirut, Amman and Erbil to 21 August, adding it would also avoid using Iranian and Iraqi airspace.

The mounting danger of a wider confrontation with Iran and its proxies comes amid a continuing Israeli assault on Gaza, where officials from the Hamas-run health ministry have said almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict broke out in October when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israeli communities.

On Sunday, the Israeli military ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza, a day after a deadly missile strike on a school turned shelter in the north killed at least 80 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. The strike was one of the deadliest attacks in the 10-month war.

The humanitarian zone has steadily shrunk during the war with the various evacuation orders. Hundreds of thousands of people have crammed into squalid tent camps with few public services, or sought shelter in schools, though the UN says hundreds of those have been directly hit or damaged.

In his own post on X and in media interviews, Ben-Gvir said that instead of agreeing to a potential ceasefire deal, Israel should block the entry of humanitarian aid and fuel to Gaza until Hamas releases all of the hostages, saying that doing so would bring the militant group to its knees.

Agencies contributed to this article