Iran will “use all possible tools” , to respond to the Israeli attack on military targets in the country over the weekend, the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghai, said today, quoted by Reuters, BTA reported.
Tehran earlier played down the Israeli airstrike on Saturday, saying it caused only limited damage. US President Joe Biden has called for an end to the escalation that has raised fears of full-scale war in the Middle East. “(Iran) will use all possible tools to give a precise and effective response to the Zionist regime (Israel)”, Baghai said during his weekly press conference.
The nature of the Iranian response depends on the nature of the Israeli attack, he added without elaborating. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday that Iranian authorities must decide how best to show Iran's might to Israel, adding that the Israeli attack should neither be "underestimated nor exaggerated".
In the early hours of Saturday, multiple Israeli jets carried out three massive strikes against military factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran, the Israeli military said.
The two heavily armed enemy countries have been in a cycle of retaliatory strikes against each other for months. Saturday's attacks were in response to Iran's massive airstrike on Israel on October 1. Israeli forces reported that air defenses were able to intercept most of the rockets fired at the Jewish state. Tehran supports the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is fighting heavy battles against Israeli forces in Lebanon, as well as the Palestinian armed group Hamas, with which Israel is fighting in the Gaza Strip.