Iranian official warns of imminent attack on Israel that will be “definitive and painful.”
By World Israel News Staff
Iran is reportedly gearing up to strike the Jewish State in the near future, despite initially signaling that it would not respond to Israel’s recent attack on military and weapons manufacturing sites.
According to a CNN report, Iran is expected to attack Israel in the coming days, before the U.S. presidential election on November 5th.
Notably, Israel was said to have scaled back its retaliatory strike on Iran – which came after an October 1st attack by Tehran which saw 200 ballistic missiles launched at Israel – due to concerns that a major campaign targeting the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and oil sites would influence the outcome of the election.
“The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Zionist regime’s aggression will be definitive and painful,” an Iranian source, who was said to have direct knowledge of the plans, told CNN.
According to an Axios report, Iran is planning to leverage its proxy groups in Iraq to launch a large number of ballistic missiles and explosive drones at Israel.
Iran is likely launching the attack from Iraqi territory in the hopes of preventing an Israeli response on Iranian soil.
Israel warned Iran that any future attacks would see a serious escalation in the response from the Jewish State, which has so far been restricted to military sites.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that should Iran attack Israel once again, the Israeli air force will target sites that it had previously avoided – likely the country’s nuclear development program and oil assets.
Biden administration officials warned that Washington would fully back Israel in escalating the conflict, in the event of an additional Iranian attack.
“Iran should not respond to Israel’s retaliation. They should not,” said White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre at a recent media conference.
“If they do, we will support Israel in defending itself, but they should not,” she said at a news briefing.
Jean-Pierre’s remarks were echoed by State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
“As we have stated publicly, and Iran clearly knows this, they must not escalate this conflict,” Miller said.