TEHRAN, Iran
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has given a measured response to Israeli strikes on the country, saying the attack should not be "exaggerated or downplayed" while refraining from pledging immediate retaliation.
President Masoud Pezeshkian
said Iran would "give an appropriate response" to the attack, which
killed at least four soldiers, adding that Tehran did not seek war.
Israel said it targeted
military sites in several regions of Iran on Saturday in retaliation for
Iranian attacks, including a barrage of almost 200 ballistic missiles fired
towards Israel on 1 October.
On Sunday Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had crippled Iranian air defence and missile
production systems. He said the strikes had "severely damaged Iran’s
defence capability and its ability to produce missiles".
"The attack was precise
and powerful and achieved its goals," Netanyahu said at a ceremony
commemorating the victims of last year's 7 October attacks.
"This regime must
understand a simple principle: whoever hurts us, we hurt him."
Official Iranian sources have
publicly played down the impact of the attack, saying most missiles were
intercepted and those that weren't caused only limited damage to air defence
systems.
In his first public comments
since the attack, Khamenei said: "It is up to the authorities to determine
how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime
and to take actions that serve the interests of this nation and country."
President Pezeshkian largely
echoed the supreme leader's language, telling a cabinet meeting: "We do
not seek war, but we will defend the rights of our nation and country."
The Israeli strikes were more
limited than some observers had been expecting. The US had publicly pressured
Israel not to hit oil and nuclear facilities, advice seemingly heeded by Tel
Aviv.
The Iranian foreign minister
said on Sunday that Iran had "received indications" about an
impending attack hours before it took place.
"We had received
indications since the evening about the possibility of an attack that
night," Abbas Araghchi told reporters, without going into more detail.
Western countries have urged
Iran in turn not to respond in order to break the cycle of escalation between
both Middle Eastern countries, which they fear could lead to all-out regional
war.
Iranian media has carried
footage of daily life continuing as normal and framing the "limited"
damage as a victory, a choice analysts said was intended to reassure Iranians.
Fighting continued between
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and between Israel and the
Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza.
On Sunday, an Israeli air
strike on the town of Sidon in southern Lebanon killed at least eight people,
according to local authorities. Late on Sunday Lebanon said at least 21 people
had been killed in Israeli strikes on the south of the country.
In Gaza, nine people were
killed in an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the al-Shati refugee
camp, Palestinians officials said. Palestinian media and the Reuters news
agency said three of the dead were Palestinian journalists, citing government
officials.
And in Israel, a man was
killed and at least 30 injured after a truck
hit a bus stop near an Israeli military base north of Tel Aviv, in
what authorities said was a suspected terror attack.
Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday proposed a two-day ceasefire in Gaza, which would
involve an exchange of four Israeli hostages for some Palestinian prisoners.
He said that within 10 days of
implementing such a temporary ceasefire, talks should resume with the aim of
reaching a more permanent one.
Israel launched a campaign to
destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern
Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251
others were taken hostage.
More than 42,924 people have
been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health
ministry.
No comments:
Post a Comment