Israel told the U.S. if Iran launches an attack from its soil against Israel in retaliation for its deadly strike in Syria earlier this week, it would draw a strong response from Israel and take the current conflict to another level, Israeli officials tell Axios.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the top of an Israeli security cabinet meeting on Thursday that Iran has been operating against Israel for years "both directly and via its proxies, and therefore Israel is operating against Iran and its proxies, both defensively and offensively."

"We will know how to defend ourselves and will operate according to the basic principle of whoever is harming or planning to harm us — we will harm him," he said according to a statement from his office.
In their call on Thursday, President Biden and Netanyahu discussed public Iranian threats against Israel. "President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those threats," the White House said.