The US and Israel “will receive a severe response”, Iran’s top leader said, following Israel’s attack on Iran last week.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei commented as follows when he spoke to students on Saturday before celebrating the 45th anniversary of the capture of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979.
The threat comes as Iran evaluates how and when it will respond to Israel’s attack last month, which is Iran said the four soldierswhich was in retaliation for the Iranian missile attack against Israel in early October.
The attack on Iran came as a result of the assassination of the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas – the Iranian-backed armed groups fighting Israel – and a senior Iranian commander.
Khamenei said that Iran’s enemies, including Israel and the US, “will surely get a painful answer for what they are doing to Iran, the Iranian people and the opposition”.
Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” is a coalition of Tehran-backed groups that include Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and armed groups in Iraq and Syria. Most have been designated as terrorist organizations by certain Western states.
Israel is said to have inflicted significant damage on Iranian air defenses and missile capabilities in its attack on October 26, although Iran has denied this.
Israel sees Iran as a key backer of the Hamas attack that killed around 1,200 people on October 7 last year.
More than 250 were also taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages.
Since then, Israel has launched a major operation in Gaza, where more than 43,300 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the area.
Israel also attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, after a year of cross-border fighting and rocket fire, which Hezbollah launched in support of the Palestinians the day after the Hamas attack.
Israel has said it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of civilians from northern Israel who were displaced by the conflict.
More than 2,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, and another 1.2 million have been displaced, according to Lebanese authorities.
Israeli authorities say more than 60 people have been killed by Hezbollah rockets, drones, and missiles in northern Israel and the Golan Heights.
Relations between the US and Iran have not been stable since November 4, 1979, when Iranian protesters seized more than 50 US diplomats and embassy staff, creating a hostage drama that lasted 444 days.
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