Iran could make 'significant' attack on Israel this week, White House says

The White House has said that it shares the Israeli intelligence assessment that Iran could launch a strike on Israel as soon as this week.

National security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday that “it is difficult to ascertain at this particular time if there’s an attack by Iran or its proxies what it could look like,” but that the U.S. and its allies were preparing for “a significant set of attacks.”

This comes after the Pentagon beefed up the U.S. military posture in the Middle East, and after Biden held a call Monday morning with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom to coordinate their response to tensions in the region.

“The president is confident that we have the capability available to us to help defend Israel should it come to that,” Kirby said. “Nobody wants to see it come to that.”

The possibility of such an attack coming this week, “is a U.S. assessment as well as an Israeli assessment,” Kirby said.