With its airstrikes targeting his country’s nuclear program and military leadership, Israel had doomed itself, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Friday.
“With this crime, the Zionist regime sealed for itself a bitter and painful destiny and will definitely see that [destiny] brought upon it,” Khamenei vowed in remarks cited by Tehran’s official IRNA news agency.
According to the Islamic Republic’s top leader, the Israel Defense Forces “carried out with its evil and bloody hand a crime in our dear country.”
Jerusalem “should await a harsh response,” the ayatollah threatened.
He confirmed that several military leaders and scientists were killed in the Israeli operation, but vowed that “their successors and colleagues will immediately pick up their work.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a separate statement that the Islamic Republic will make Israel regret its attack.
“The Iranian nation and the country’s officials will not remain silent in the face of this crime, and the legitimate and powerful response of the Islamic Republic of Iran will make the enemy regret its foolish act,” Pezeshkian said in the video statement, which was aired on state TV.
Dozens of Israeli jets attacked dozens of targets, including military and nuclear sites, in a “preemptive, precise, combined offensive” strike against Iran’s nuclear program early on Friday.
The IDF said the attack was based on “high-quality intelligence” and “in response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation, dubbed “Rising Lion,” would “continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat,” vowing to stop “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.”
Air-raid sirens were heard throughout Israel around 3 a.m. on Friday, warning of an immediate emergency situation on the home front. The Israeli military subsequently announced a prohibition on all “educational activities, gatherings and workplaces, except for essential sectors.”
