As Iran vows ‘stronger response’ should Israel hit back, Gulf states said to fear their oil facilities could be targeted

After Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian warned last night that an Israeli response to its ballistic missile attack would prompt “a stronger response” from Iran, Iranian commentators are predicting that Iran would fire 1,000 missiles at Israel and target civilian infrastructure, Channel 12 reports.
The Israeli TV station’s regional affairs reporter Ohad Hemo also says reports in Iran claim that it fired 400 missiles at Israel — rather than the 181 that Israel has reported.
Hemo says the regime sees the current escalated conflict as a “moment of truth” and an “existential war for the Axis of Resistance it has put together.” But since the intended spearhead of that axis, Hezbollah, is weakened, it’s really a direct case of Iran against Israel, he notes.
Hemo quotes Pezeshkian saying in Qatar last night that, if Israel “wants to react, we will have a stronger response; this is what the Islamic Republic is committed to.”
But he also says Pezeshkian talked of other states that Israel ostensibly has in its sights after Gaza and Lebanon, and interpreted that comment as indicating a “real concern” in the regime of Israeli attack.
In his comments yesterday, Pezeshkian claimed Iran was “not looking for war; it is Israel that forces us to react.”
“The dirty goal of the Zionist regime is to cause insecurity and spread crisis in the region,” Pezeshkian also said. “What we want from US and European countries is to tell the entity they have planted in the region (Israel) to stop the bloodshed.”
But “any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces,” he said.
With Israel reportedly considering targeting Iranian oil facilities, Channel 12 also says that Iranians have been ordered not to fill up their cars with more than 30 liters of fuel for now.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Gulf Arab states meeting in Qatar are concerned that their oil facilities could be targeted by Iran.
Iran has not threatened to attack Gulf oil facilities but it has warned that if “Israel supporters” intervene directly their interests in the region would be targeted, Reuters says.
“The Gulf states think it’s unlikely that Iran will strike their oil facilities, but the Iranians are dropping hints they might from unofficial sources. It’s a tool the Iranians have against the US and the global economy,” Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator close to the Royal Court, tells the news agency.