Middle East Braces For Another Round of Violence

The Middle East braced for another round of violence Monday, after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a call Sunday with Group of Seven foreign ministers that Tehran could attack Israel within 24 to 48 hours, according to two diplomats briefed on the call.

Blinken didn’t say what form an attack could take. 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 last week of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran and senior Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

On Monday, Iran called a gathering of foreign diplomats in Tehran. In the meeting, Iranian acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri-Kani attacked what he called the complicity of the U.S. and some European countries in supporting Israel, he said afterward on social media.“Such aggression cannot go unanswered,” he said he told the diplomats. “The Islamic Republic’s response will be definitive and decisive.”

On Monday morning, Iran issued a notice to pilots and aviation authorities warning of likely disruption to GPS and navigational signals, which are used by pilots for positional data and to follow flight routes, a U.S. official said. The warning was posted on the website of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.