Iran's Revolutionary Guards threatened to launch “crushing attacks” on regional enemy Israel if it retaliated against a missile attack underway on Tuesday.
“If the Zionist regime responds to Iranian operations, it will face crushing attacks,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement carried by the Fars news agency.
On Tuesday evening, Iran launched a missile attack targeting Israel's commercial center Tel Aviv, state media reported.
The United States had discussed an impending Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel and warned it would have “serious” consequences for Tehran.
Iranian media released images online of what they said were rockets launched against Israel.
State television played cheerful songs over the images and the presenter congratulated “the brave Iranian people”.
Tuesday's attack was Iran's second attack on Israel, following a missile and drone strike in April in retaliation for a deadly Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Nearly all the munitions fired in that attack were intercepted by Israel or its allies.
An Israeli attack on Beirut on Friday killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose Lebanese militant group has been armed and financed by the Islamic republic for years.
Nasrallah was killed along with General Abbas Nilforoushan, a top commander of the Quds Force, the Guard's foreign operations wing.
Iran vowed that Nilforoushan's killing “will not go unanswered.”
At the UN General Assembly in New York last month, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused Israel of belligerence, while Iran had shown restraint.
He suggested that Iran had withheld retaliation for the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, fearing it could derail US-backed ceasefire efforts in Gaza.
“We tried not to react. They kept telling us we were within reach of peace, maybe in a week or so,” he said.
Pezeshkian said on Sunday that promises by the US and its allies of a “ceasefire in exchange for Iran's failure to respond to Haniyeh's killing were completely false.”
He added that “giving these criminals (Israel) a chance would only encourage them to commit more crimes.”
(This story has not been edited by Our staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
