Israel expects that Iran would launch a counterattack against the Jewish state in repose to its successful strike against Iranian military targets including missile production facilities, security sources told the Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei threatened Israel in a post on X, written first in English and then repeated in Hebrew.
“Zionists are making a miscalculation with respect to Iran,” Khamenei wrote
“They don't know Iran. They still haven't been able to correctly understand the power, initiative, and determination of the Iranian people. We need to make them understand these things.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that the Israeli Air Force struck Iranian missile targets early Saturday morning in a public address he gave at a state ceremony to mourn the fallen soldiers in Israel’s wars on its southern and northern borders in the last year.
“In the early hours of Saturday morning” the IAF “hit areas in Iran, severely harming its defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that would be launched at us,” Netanyahu said at the ceremony in Mount Herzl.
“The attack on Iran was precise and powerful” and “achieved all its objectives,” he said. He thanked the United States for its close cooperation and assistance. The Biden administration has clarified that it was not involved in the attack, although it was given advance notice that it would take place.
It was Netanyahu’s first public comments on the attack, which he placed within the larger context of the Swords of Iron War. At the Mt. Herzl ceremony, Netanyahu recalled how in the last year, Israel had risen above the losses it had suffered during that initial Hamas-led invasion on October 7.
Israel has battled Iran and its proxies as it has rewritten history in its war of resilience, which has been an existential battle, Netanyahu explained.
The Swords of Iron War, he said, has taken place on seven fronts, and the IDF exacted a heavy price from its enemies.He recalled how Iran had launched a ballistic missile attack against Israel at the start of October in response to Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, almost a year into the IDF war with the Iranian proxy group.
On Saturday, in its response to that Iranian ballistic missile attack, Israel decided to go after “the head of the octopus” after hitting at its tentacles for months.
“Those who strike us, we will strike. This is a tenet that has accompanied us all this time and will accompany us going forward,” he said.
Gallant at the same ceremony said that in the last year, the IDF turned the tide of the war, chalking up security up “unprecedented achievements, in all sectors of combat.”
“In the south, Hamas ceased to function as a military framework, in the north, Hezbollah continues to suffer a series of blows, the chain of command was eliminated, most of its rocket and missile power was destroyed,” Gallant stated.“Hamas and Hezbollah which Iran had built up as proxy groups that would act as its long arm against the State of Israel, “are no longer an effective tool in the hands of Iran,” he said.
In addition, he stressed, Saturday morning’s “precise, deadly” strike on Iran “conveyed a clear message - the long arm of the State of Israel will reach anyone who tries to harm us. No place is too far for us.”
The United Nations Security Council is expected to meet Monday to discuss the IDF’s Saturday morning attack.Britain's foreign minister David Lammy said he had spoken to his Israeli and Iranian counterparts in separate calls on Sunday seeking to avoid escalation into a "catastrophic" regional war after Israel struck Iranian military sites.
"Today I held important calls with Israeli FM (Israel Katz) and Iranian FM (Abbas Araghchi). The UK continues to press for de-escalation and an end to the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza," Lammy said in a statement after an Israeli air attack early on Saturday against Iranian targets.
No comments:
Post a Comment