Tehran: The “tiniest attack” by Israel would bring a “massive and harsh” response, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has reiterated as concern over the threat of full-scale war in the Middle East persists.
Raisi’s warning came on Wednesday as he spoke at Iran’s annual army parade. The world is braced for potential retaliation to Iran’s attack on Israel which took place over the weekend.
Israel has pledged to respond, despite calls for it to hold back persisting on all sides, and the UK’s foreign minister suggested on Wednesday as he visited Israel that it has decided to “act”.
Speaking at the ceremony, Raisi hailed Iran’s direct attack on Israel, dubbed “True Promise”, and reiterated recent threats of a “strong and fierce response”.
Since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, an attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas in October, set off the war in Gaza, Iranian allies in Lebanon and Yemen have been engaged in low-level hostilities with Israel.
However, a suspected Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria on April 1 prompted Iran’s first-ever direct attack against Israel.
“The people of the world saw that after the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, ‘True Promise’ collapsed the Zionist regime’s false hegemony,” Raisi asserted.
Calling that attack “limited” he claimed that if Iran had wanted to carry out a bigger attack, “nothing would remain from the Zionist regime”.
Iranian officials have declared that any retaliation by Israel would be met with a swift response.
“That is the time when the supporters of the Zionist regime will find out that their hidden power will not be able to do anything,” the president said, according to a statement published on his official website.
