Iran vows ‘nightmare’ attack on Israel

Israel is “shaking” in fear of Iran’s expected vengeance for the Ismail Haniyeh assassination, said IRGC head Hossein Salami.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Iran continued its war of words with Israel Sunday, with a top military commander threatening a “nightmare” attack on the Jewish state, Al-Arabiya reported Monday.

At a meeting in Yasuj, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Hossein Salami claimed that Israel’s leaders and people are frightened of Iran’s promised vengeance for Hamas political head Ismail Haniyeh being assassinated in July in the heart of a well-guarded compound in Tehran by an explosive planted in his bedroom.

The success greatly embarrassed the Islamic Republic and it immediately blamed Israel, although Jerusalem never took public credit for the assassination of one of its key enemies.

“The nightmare of Iran’s inevitable response is shaking Israel day and night,” Salami said.

Warning that Iran’s response will be “painful and different” than expected, he added, “The usurping Zionist regime and its allies should not think that they will be struck and run away. Rather, they should realize that they will be struck and will not be able to run away. They will receive great lessons and learn not to play with the lion’s tail.”

Iran’s leaders have threatened vengeance many times since Haniyeh was eliminated, although they have been careful to state that it would come at a time of their own choosing.

When attempting to avenge the IAF elimination of several of its top military men in Damascus in early April, the mullahs launched more than 300 missiles at Israel less than two weeks later.

Almost none of them got through an aerial defense that included the militaries of the U.S., Great Britain, France and Jordan as well as Israel.

Practically no damage was caused by the few that landed, and there was only one injury, of a young girl who recovered after a few months in the hospital.

One possible scenario could be that Iran unleashes its top terror proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, to go all out against the Jewish state.

So far, the Shiite terrorists have launched over 7,000 rockets, missiles, UAVs and other airborne projectiles over the border to support Hamas in its war with Israel, forcing the evacuation of some 60,000 Israelis from border communities. However, Hezbollah was also prepared to fire over a thousand rockets at once some two weeks ago, in what was seen as a possible Iranian-ordered revenge attack, but the IDF destroyed all the launchers in a pre-emptive strike.

Still, it is believed to have some 140,000 rockets left in its arsenal, and many more trained fighters than Hamas.

Israel has been on high alert in the north since the beginning of the war, keeping a substantial number of troops there and sending its air force to strike innumerable Hezbollah targets in Lebanon almost daily in response to the terrorists’ launches.

There are many voices in Israel calling for an all-out attack on Hezbollah because it is untenable that the terrorists have succeeded in shutting down a whole area of the country for almost a year.

The U.S. is trying to defuse the situation by using diplomatic means, believing that all-out war in the north could turn the conflict into a regional one and be “catastrophic.”