Leader: Israel needs to realize Iran’s clout
Israeli strikes ‘should neither be exaggerated nor downplayed’
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Israel needs to understand the power and determination of Iranian nation after the regime launched a strike on Iran on Saturday.
“They (the Israelis) need to understand the power, determination, and innovation of the Iranian nation and its youth,” he told a group of people in a meeting in Tehran on Sunday.
“How to convey this power and resolve of the Iranian nation to the Zionist regime is for our officials to determine, and what is in the best interest of the nation and the country should be done.”
Ayatollah Khamenei said that the regime’s miscalculation should be disrupted.
The Leader further emphasized that Israel’s evil act should “neither be exaggerated nor downplayed.” Four Iranian Army officers were killed in the attack.
In the early hours of Saturday, Israeli warplanes used the space available to the US military in Iraq to fire long-range air-to-air missiles in Iran’s Tehran, Khuzestan, and Ilam provinces in flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter.
Iran said that the attack was successfully intercepted and countered by the country’s air defense system and that it only caused “limited damage” to radar sites.
The Israel’s aggression was a response to Iran’s missile attack on the regime’s military sites on October 1, itself a retaliation for the assassination of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah resistance groups and an Iranian commander.
‘Definite response’
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said that the Islamic Republic’s response to the act of aggression will be “definite and calculated.”
“Even though the Zionist regime’s military action against Iran was all out of despair and turned into another defeat for the entity, the Islamic Republic of Iran considers itself entitled to self-defense within the framework of the inherent right of legitimate defense and under Article 51 of the UN Charter,” he said on Sunday.
“The response to this act of aggression will be definite and calculated,” the parliament speaker warned.
According to Qalibaf, a comparison between Operation True Promise II and the usurping regime’s latest action attests to the deterrence power of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
US involvement
Also on Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister pointed to the US role in Israel’s attack on Iran, saying that Washington’s complicity in the Israeli act of aggression against Iran is “quite clear” as it has provided the regime with military equipment and airspace to conduct the terrorist raid.
His remarks came a day after US officials claimed that Washington was not directly involved in the Israeli assault.
“The least they (the Americans) did was to provide a space corridor for the Zionist regime, as well as the equipment they already supplied [to Israel] somehow for participation in this operation.”
The top diplomat also noted that the United States bears responsibility for its “completely obvious” partnership in the occupying regime’s atrocities and escalation of tensions in West Asia.
He further said that Israel is committing crimes in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon using US weapons and enjoying Washington’s political support.
“It is a well-proven fact that without the US, Israel has no power in the region,” Araghchi emphasized.
Letter to UN chief
Abbas Araghchi also sent a letter to the UN chief and the head of the Council “demanding an urgent meeting of the Security Council to take a decisive position in condemning this aggression,” a ministry statement said.
In his letter, Araghchi said “most of the projectiles fired were intercepted by Iran’s defense systems” but the attack led to damage at “the target points,” as well as the death of four Army servicemen.
He said the Israeli attack was a “clear violation of the sovereignty” of Iran which “reserves the inherent right... to respond to this criminal aggression.”