Iran warned Israel and the United States against any reaction to its massive missile strike against the Jewish State on Tuesday night.
“Should the Zionist regime dare to respond or commit further acts of malevolence, a subsequent and crushing response will ensue,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations wrote in a post on X.
Iran’s legal, rational, and legitimate response to the terrorist acts of the Zionist regime—which involved targeting Iranian nationals and interests and infringing upon the national sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran—has been duly carried out. Should the Zionist regime…
— I.R.IRAN Mission to UN, NY (@Iran_UN) October 1, 2024
It also issued a veiled threat to the United States, stressing that “Regional states and the Zionists’ supporters are advised to part ways with the regime.”
Iranian-backed Iraqi armed groups were more direct, warning that U.S. bases in Iraq and the region would be targets if the United States joined any response to Iranian strikes on Israel or if Israel used Iraqi airspace against Tehran.
Decision to attack Israel made by Iranian supreme leader
A senior Iranian official told Reuters that the order to launch missiles at Israel was made by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei remains in a secure location, the senior official added.
A senior Iranian official said the US and Russia were alerted before the missiles were launched.
The attack followed Israel’s intense bombardment of military targets belonging to the Iranian proxy group in Lebanon in the last weeks, during which Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated.
On Monday night, its ground troops entered southern Lebanon for the first time since the Second Lebanon War in 2006 in an attempt to push Hezbollah away from its border area.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the missile attack was in retaliation for Nasrallah’s assassination and the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran over the summer. Israel is widely believed to be responsible for Haniyeh’s death but has not calmed responsibility for the hit.
Iran’s Mission to the UN wrote on X that the attack was “Iran’s legal, rational, and legitimate response to the terrorist acts of the Zionist regime—which involved targeting Iranian nationals and interests and infringing upon the national sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran—has been duly carried out.”
IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, “This attack will have consequences. We have plans, and we will operate at the place and time we decide.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
