Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, said on Sunday that Israel’s attack on Iran overnight Friday “should neither be magnified nor belittled.” It was his first public comment since the airstrikes, which reportedly crippled Iran’s air defenses and damaged its long-range missile production capabilities.
Iranian media has downplayed the attacks, claiming the damage was limited.
However, Khamenei seemed to criticize this approach, saying that while exaggerating the strikes’ damage was wrong, minimizing them was also a mistake.
“That we say: ‘No; It was nothing, it didn’t matter,’ this is also wrong,” said the Iranian leader.
Israel, said, had miscalculated, referring to the Jewish state as the “Zionists.”
“They don’t know Iran. They don’t know Iran’s youth. They don’t know Iran’s nation. They still haven’t been able to properly understand the strength, ability, initiative and will of the Iranian nation. We have to explain this to them,” he said.
Iran must show Israel what Iranian youth are like, he said.
While Israel reportedly hit Iran’s air defenses and missile production facilities, it left the country’s nuclear program unscathed.
Iranian state media has reported that targets were hit in three main regions: Tehran, Khuzestan (in southwest Iran) and Ilam (western Iran).
The attack, which Israel named “Operation Days of Repentance,” saw tens of IAF jets, accompanied by refuelers, travel some 1,600 kilometers (~1,000 miles) from Israeli territory. The IAF achieved near uncontested aerial supremacy in Iranian skies.
