Following Israel’s attack on Iran a week ago, Iran’s supreme leader said the United States and Israel “will definitely face overwhelming retaliation.”
Khamenei made the comments while speaking to students on Saturday ahead of the 45th anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.
The threat comes as Iran considers whether and how to respond to last month’s Israeli attack, and Iran’s response to an Iranian missile attack on Israel in early October. He announced that he had killed four soldiers in retaliation.
The Iranian attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of leaders and senior Iranian commanders of Hezbollah and Hamas, Iranian-backed militant groups fighting Israel.
Khamenei said Iran’s enemies, including Israel and the United States, “will definitely receive overwhelming retaliation for their actions against Iran, the Iranian people, and the resistance front.”
Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” is an alliance of Tehran-backed groups including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and militant groups in Iraq and Syria. Most of them are designated as terrorist organizations by Western countries.
Although not acknowledged by Iran, Israel is said to have caused significant damage to Iran’s air defense and missile capabilities in the October 26 attack.
Israel views Iran as a key supporter of the Hamas attack that killed around 1,200 people on October 7 last year.
More than 250 people were also taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages.
Since then, Israel has launched a major operation in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 43,300 people, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry.
Israel also launched an offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, after nearly a year of cross-border fighting and rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians a day after the Hamas attack. did.
Israel said it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents from northern Israel displaced by the conflict.
Since then, more than 2,800 people have been killed and another 1.2 million displaced in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.
Israeli authorities say more than 60 people have been killed in Hezbollah rocket, drone and missile attacks in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.
Relations between the United States and Iran have not stabilized adequately since November 4, 1979, when Iranian protesters detained more than 50 U.S. diplomats and embassy personnel, sparking a hostage crisis that lasted 444 days. do not have.
