Iran says retaliation against Israeli ‘legitimate defense’, warns of more intense raids

“Iran’s military action was based on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter concerning legitimate defense in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus,” the mission said in a statement on Saturday.

“The matter can be considered as concluded,” it added.

The mission, however, warned that if the Israeli regime perpetrated another mistake, Iran’s subsequent response could be “remarkably more intense”.

The statement concluded that the conflict was one between Iran and the Zionist regime, “of which the United States should stay away.”

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), on Saturday night, launched “extensive” retaliatory missile and drone strikes against the occupied territories, defining the mission as “Operation True Promise”.

The Israeli attack raid resulted in the martyrdom of Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, his deputy, General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, and five of their accompanying officers.

The terrorist attack drew sharp condemnation from senior Iranian political and military leaders, who vowed “definitive revenge”.

In a statement, the IRGC said the retaliation came after 10 days of “silence and neglect” on the part of the international organizations, especially the United Nations Security Council, to condemn the Israeli aggression or punish the regime in line with Article 7 of the UN Charter.

Iran then resorted to the retaliatory strikes, the Corps added, “using its strategic intelligence capabilities, missiles, and drones” to attack “targets of the Zionist terrorist army in the occupied territories, successfully hitting and destroying them”.

The statement warned the United States — the Israeli regime’s biggest supporter — that “any support or participation in harming Iran’s interests will result in a decisive and regrettable response by the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic”.

“Furthermore, America is held responsible for the evil actions of the Zionist regime, and if this child-killing regime is not restrained in the region, it will bear the consequences,” it noted.

The IRGC concluded the statement by cautioning third countries against letting their soil or airspace be used for attacks against the Islamic Republic.