THE White House announced that the US president Joe Biden rushes back to Washington on Saturday afternoon, interrupting his weekend at Delawareto consult with his Security Council team on events in the Middle East.

Tel Aviv, for its part, states that it is ready to repel any attack, adding that the counterattack will be immediate and crucial. The preparatory work has already been done with the mobilization of air defense personnel and activation of the anti-missile systems to the maximum extent.

At the same time, Israel is demanding that Iran suffer consequences for the seizure of the ship in the Strait of Hormuz by the Guards of the Revolution.

“H Tehran is committing hostage-taking and must be sanctioned for it,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said today, following the seizure of an Israeli-bound cargo ship near Strait of Hormuz by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

“Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime is a criminal regime that supports the crimes of Hamas and is now conducting a piracy operation in violation of international law,” Katz said. “I call on the European Union and the free world to immediately declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization and impose sanctions on Iran now¬.

Iran will “suffer the consequences of its choice to further aggravate the situation”, Israel’s military warned today as the country is on high alert in the face of threats of retaliation from Tehran, an ally of Palestinian Hamas.

“We have increased our readiness to protect Israel from a new Iranian attack. We are also ready to respond,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Haggari added in a statement released after Iran said it had seized a ship “linked” to Israel in the Gulf.

Iran moves missiles and drones

According to CNN, the US has observed Iran moving internal military assets, including drones and cruise missiles, signaling it is preparing to attack Israeli targets, according to two people familiar with US intelligence. One of them said the US had observed Iran preparing up to 100 cruise missiles.

It was not clear whether Iran was preparing to strike from its soil as part of a preemptive strike or to try to prevent Israel or the US from launching a possible counterstrike on its soil.

Hezbollah is escalating its attacks

For its part, Hezbollah announced on Friday that it launched “dozens of rockets” against Israeli positions, in retaliation for Israeli strikes it said took place in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli army announced for its part that it detected “about 40 launches” from Lebanese territory, assuring that “some” rockets were “intercepted” and that “no injuries were reported”. Earlier, he added, two one-way drones, loaded with explosives, launched by Hezbollah against Israeli territory were intercepted.