Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave a limited response to Israel’s strikes on the country, saying the attacks should not be “exaggerated or downplayed” while refusing to promise immediate retaliation.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would “give an appropriate response” to the attack, which killed at least four soldiers, adding that Tehran did not seek war.
Israel said it targeted military sites in several Iranian regions on Saturday in retaliation for Iran’s attacks, including a barrage of nearly 200 missiles fired at Israel on October 1.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had disabled Iran’s air defense and missile production systems. He said the strikes had “severely damaged Iran’s defense capability and its ability to produce missiles”.
“The attack was precise and powerful and achieved its goals,” Netanyahu said at a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the October 7 attack last year.
“This government must understand a simple principle: whoever hurts us, we hurt him.”
Official Iranian sources have publicly downplayed the impact of the attack, saying many missiles were intercepted and those that did not caused limited damage to air defense systems.
In his first public remarks since the attack, Khamenei said: “It is up to the authorities to decide how to transfer the power and will of the Iranian people to the state of Israel and take measures that are consistent with the needs of this nation and the country.” ”
President Pezeshkian echoed the supreme leader’s language, telling a cabinet meeting: “We don’t want war, but we will defend the rights of our nation and our country.”
The Israeli strikes were more limited than they expected. The US had publicly pressured Israel not to strike oil and nuclear facilities, advice that Tel Aviv seems to have heeded.
The West has urged Iran not to respond in order to break the cycle of escalation between the two countries in the Middle East, which they fear could lead to a regional war.
Iranian media carried a video of daily life continuing as normal and framing the “limited” damage as a victory, which analysts said was intended to reassure the Iranian people.
Fighting continued between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza.
On Sunday, an Israeli air strike in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon killed at least eight people, according to local authorities.
In Gaza, nine people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school turned shelter in the al-Shati refugee camp, Palestinian officials said.
Palestinian media and the Reuters news agency said three of the dead were Palestinian journalists, citing government officials.
In Israel, one man was killed and at least 30 others were injured after a truck crashed into a bus stop near an Israeli military base north of Tel Aviv, in what authorities said was a terrorist attack.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday proposed a two-day ceasefire in Gaza, which would include the exchange of four Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
He said that within ten days, discussions like these should be started, with the aim of having permanent discussions.
But speaking to the BBC’s Arabic Service, a senior Hamas official said its terms for an end to the war – rejected by Israel for months – had not changed.
Sami Abu Zuhri said the Palestinian militia continued to demand an end to the fighting, Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza and a serious prisoner exchange agreement.
“Any agreement that does not guarantee these conditions is useless,” he added.
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