The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Monday that Israel had “failed to achieve its ominous goals” with its Saturday strikes on Iranian military sites.
Hossein Salami, quoted by the Tasnim news agency, said the Israeli attack, which came in retaliation for Iran’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile barrage on the country, was a sign of “miscalculation and helplessness” as Israel battles the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
“Its bitter consequences will be unimaginable” for Israel, Salami warned according to Tasnim. Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei warned that Tehran would use “all available tools” to respond to Israel’s strikes.
Speaking at a weekly televised news conference, Baghaei said Iran would “use available tools to deliver a definite and effective response to the Zionist regime.” The nature of Iran’s response depends on the nature of the Israeli attack, Baghaei added without elaborating.
Iran has attempted to downplay the retaliatory strike launched by Israel on Saturday, almost four weeks after the Islamic Republic’s barrage of some 200 ballistic missiles.
The Israeli military said that the retaliatory attack had targeted strategic military sites — specifically, drone and ballistic missile manufacturing and launch sites, as well as air defense batteries.
Iranian state media also reported on Monday that a civilian security guard had been killed in the attacks, the fifth confirmed person to die.
“The martyr Allahverdi Rahimpour, a civilian who was killed near Tehran during the recent attack by the Zionist regime, has been buried,” the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency reported.
Tasnim reported that Rahimpour had worked “as a security guard in a company” in the city of Nassimshahr, southwest of Tehran.” It did not elaborate further on the company in question.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that the attack “should neither be exaggerated nor minimized,” but claimed that Israel, in its decision to retaliate, had underestimated “the power, initiative, and determination of the Iranian people.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said, meanwhile, that Iran does “not seek war but we will defend the rights of our nation and country,” and stressed that there would be “an appropriate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime.”
