At a public funeral for the deceased men on Friday, Iran pledged to exact revenge on Israel for the killing of senior commanders and other officers of its elite Quds Force, raising the possibility of an all-out conflict but offering no details on how or when it would do so.

There has been an increase in the alert level for US military personnel in the area. An Israeli official claims that Israel has also disabled GPS signals, called back certain reservists to air defence units, cancelled combat unit leave, and put its troops on high alert.

Iran has put all of its armed forces on high alert, according to two Iranian officials who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to talk in public. Iran has also decided that it must respond directly.

At the funeral of the officers slain in Damascus, in Tehran, Iran, General Hossein Salami, the commander in charge of the Revolutionary Guard, promised the assembled audience, “Our brave men will punish the Zionist regime.” “We warn that no act by any enemy against our holy system will go unanswered, and the art of the Iranian nation is to break the power of empires.”

Following an Israeli airstrike on a building within the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, three generals and four additional Quds Force personnel lost their lives. As a branch of the Revolutionary Guard, the force carries out military and intelligence activities outside of Iran, frequently collaborating closely with partners who stand in opposition to both the United States and Israel, such as Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran has a history of responding with vigour. More than a hundred soldiers were injured when Iran fired missiles against US bases in Iraq four years ago, following the US-inflicted death of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force.

Iran has taken care to avoid a frontal confrontation that may escalate into a full-fledged war, despite the fact that its proxy militias operating throughout the Middle East have launched several strikes on Israel since the battle between Israel and Hamas started on October 7.