Iran official: Missiles need only 7 minutes to hit Tel Aviv

A senior Iranian government official on Saturday warned Tehran would swiftly retaliate against Israel if the US launched a military strike against Iran.

Mojtaba Zonour, a member of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission and a former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps official, boasted an Iranian missile could hit Tel Aviv in under seven minutes, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

Zonour said Tehran would strike the Israeli coastal city and “raze to the ground” a US military base in Bahrain “if the enemy makes a mistake.”

“And only seven minutes is needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel Aviv,” he added.

Zonour’s comments came during a Revolutionary Guard military exercise aimed at testing its missile and radar systems. The exercise was taking place in a 35,000-square-kilometer (13,515-square-mile) area in Semnan province in northern Iran.

Illustrative photo of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (@MidEastNews_Eng via Twitter/File)

The Saturday exercise came a day after US President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on Iran in response to a recent missile test. The sanctions target more than two dozen people and companies from the Persian Gulf to China.

On Saturday, another senior IRGC official issued a similar warning against the US.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the Guard’s airspace division, said: “If the enemy makes a mistake, our roaring missiles will come down on them,” according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Hajizadeh said Washington criticism of recent Iranian missile tests was “a pretext to show their animosity towards us; we are making round-the-clock efforts to defend our country’s security and if the enemy dares to make any mistake our roaring missiles will land on them.”

Iran last Sunday test-fired a medium range missile, which the White House contends violated a UN Security Council resolution proscribing missiles that could carry a nuclear device.

The Islamic Republic has confirmed it tested a ballistic missile but denied it was a breach of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers or UN resolutions.