Iranian MP Suggests Israel Will Be Destroyed Within 30 Minutes If U.S. Attacks Iran; Israel 'Bracing Militarily' For Possible U.S.-Iran Escalation

The already-strained relationship between Tehran and Washington ties worsened on 20 June, when Iran said that it had downed a US drone over Iranian soil. US President Trump then tweeted that he had halted a military strike against Iran 10 minutes before it was set to be carried out, upon learning that some 150 Iranians might die in the attack.

Mojtaba Zolnour, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy commission, has warned in an interview with the Tehran-based Arabic language news TV network al-Alam that if the US attacks Iran, "only half an hour will remain of Israel's lifespan".

Iranian MP Mojtaba Zolnour: Nothing Will Be Left of Israel following the First Wave of Hizbullah Missiles pic.twitter.com/6ZYX2eUfJq

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 21, 2018

Israel is preparing for its possible military involvement in any escalation in the Gulf confrontation between Iran and the United States, the Israeli foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The unraveling of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal under U.S. diplomatic pressure, Iran’s downing of a U.S. drone and its alleged role in the holing of oil tankers in the Gulf have driven up tensions and stirred war worries.

Israel has encouraged the Trump administration to press ahead with sanctions against its arch-foe, predicting that Tehran will eventually renegotiate a more limiting nuclear deal.

But Foreign Minister Israel Katz told an international security forum that Iran might accidentally stumble out of what he termed the “gray zone” of contained confrontation.

“It should be taken into account that mistaken calculations by the (Iranian) regime...are liable to bring about a shift from the ‘gray zone’ to the ‘red zone’ - that is, a military conflagration,” he said in a speech to the Herzliya Conference.

“We must be prepared for this, and thus the State of Israel continues to devote itself to building up its military might for the event that it will have to respond to escalation scenarios.”

14 sailors have died in a fire on board a Russian AS-12, the smallest nuclear sub in the world & also one of the deepest diving. They were "studying the bottom of the world ocean" somewhere in Russian waters, the defence ministry has said https://t.co/QDP5vUGCAz pic.twitter.com/oS15gFjoMd

— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) July 2, 2019

#BREAKING: Putin cancelling his plans for today. The Kremlin says he will be meeting with his defence minister very urgently

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) July 2, 2019

Pence's abrupt return to the White House is not the result of a medical issue, but other details have not been released; officials say there is "no cause for alarm" https://t.co/rO9k4iUnyk https://t.co/b2GKoEQbl9

— BNO News (@BNONews) July 2, 2019

Pence's COS Marc Short told @meridithmcgraw that the Vice President was on the plane but it didn't take off. Then he turned around, back to the White House. He told her we'll find out "in a few weeks" what happened.

— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) July 2, 2019