Netanyahu: Attack on Iran was precise, powerful, achieved all goals; Khamenei: A mistake
PM says airstrikes hit Iran defense capabilities, missile production; Iran’s supreme leader warns of ‘response to Zionist regime,’ says its ‘incorrect assessment must be corrected’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel’s air attack on Iran over the weekend was “precise and powerful” and achieved all its goals, while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned that Tehran officials would determine how best to respond to the strikes.
“We promised we would respond to the Iranian attack and on Saturday we struck… The attack in Iran was precise and powerful, achieving all of its objectives,” Netanyahu said at a ceremony marking the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the Hamas attack on October 7 last year.
Israel launched a long-awaited retaliatory strike against Iran early Saturday, almost four weeks after the Islamic Republic’s massive ballistic missile barrage on the country, with the military saying the Israeli Air Force strikes targeted strategic military sites — specifically drone and ballistic missile manufacturing and launch sites, as well as air defense batteries.
Iran had been bracing for a reprisal after its latest direct attack on Israel, in which it fired 200 ballistic missiles that sent most of the population to bomb shelters on October 1, killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank, and caused damage in residential areas and at military bases — although the IDF said that the attack had no operational impact.
“Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles and this attack failed,” Netanyahu said. “We kept our promise. The air force attacked Iran and hit Iran’s defense capabilities and missile production.”
Saturday’s strikes followed a systematic, months-long campaign to “sever the arms of the Iranian octopus, Hezbollah and Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “Two days ago, we struck the head of the octopus, the Iranian regime.”
Addressing the Iranian people, he said, “Our fight is not against you,” but rather against the regime that oppresses them and threatens the region.
Also speaking at the October 7 memorial ceremony, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the “precise, lethal and surprising” attack on Iran sent a clear message — “Israel’s long arm will reach anyone who tries to harm us.”
“There is no place too far away for us,” he said.
Khamenei: Don’t deride or exaggerate the Israeli attack
Following the strikes on Saturday, Iran confirmed Israel had targeted military sites around the capital and in other provinces but appeared to downplay the impact, saying the raids caused “limited damage” but killed four soldiers.
In his first public comments since Israel’s reprisal attacks, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Tehran officials should determine how best to respond.
“Israel made a mistake [with its attack]. They exaggerated, of course,” Khamnei said. “To exaggerate about this is a mistake. But deriding this [attack] is also a mistake. To say, ‘nothing happened; it wasn’t important,’ is also a mistake.”
He added: “The incorrect assessment by the Zionist regime must be corrected. They have a mistaken assessment about Iran.”
According to the state IRNA news outlet, Khamenei also said Israel “should understand the strength, will, and initiative of the Iranian nation.”
He added that Tehran’s “response would be determined by senior officials, in a way that best serves the interest of the people and also takes the the state into account.”
Israel’s airstrikes on Saturday crippled Tehran’s ability to produce long-range ballistic missiles, in a blow that will be hard and time-consuming to recover from, and rendered crucial energy facilities vulnerable to future attacks by destroying air defense batteries protecting them, according to multiple reports citing Israeli, American and Iranian officials, as well as satellite images analyzed by experts.
The operation, hitting targets some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away, was unprecedented in terms of its scale and duration, and Israel’s immediate acknowledgment of responsibility.
Iranian media quoted the country’s parliament speaker as saying that Tehran would respond to the strikes “decisively and appropriately,” citing the right to self-defense provided by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
“Israel has become a laughingstock in the face of Iran. Tehran’s response to the Israeli attack is inevitable,” Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was quoted as saying.
He described the strikes, which were carried out in several waves over several hours, in various areas of Iran, as “a sign of desperation, resulting in another failure for the regime.”
Ghalibaf also cautioned the United States, which he called Israel’s “main supporter and partner in all its war crimes,” to work to restrain Jerusalem and to pursue diplomatic channels to prevent a further escalation, according to the Iranian reports.
A short while after the strikes on Saturday morning, the Israeli military said the operation had given the IAF “wider freedom of aerial action in Iran,” and that it had a broad bank of targets that it could hit in the future if required.
In recent weeks, the Biden administration had pressed Israel not to strike nuclear or oil sites, while backing its right to respond to Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attack.
American officials have said that Israel notified Washington ahead of the strikes, stressing the US was not involved in the operation.
Iran said that the October 1 attack came in response to strikes in Lebanon that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and much of the terror group’s senior leadership last month, as well as the killing of Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July in a blast which has been widely blamed on Israel despite its silence on the matter.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.