Khamenei releases video threatening Israel and US with ‘crushing response’

Benny Sabati, an Iran expert, said that an Iranian response to the IDF operation was guaranteed.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

On Saturday, The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, released a video threatening Israel and the US with a “crushing response” for the Israel Air Force’s wave of airstrikes against Iranian military sites.

He said, “The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran, the Iranian nation, and the resistance front.”

Immediately after the operation in late October, Iran downplayed the attacks in the state media.

However, at the time, Khamenei said, “One should not exaggerate or underestimate the Israeli attack, and the military officials will decide on the response path.”

Since the operation, satellite imagery has confirmed extensive damage to facilities that produce ballistic missiles as well as the country’s air defense system.

On Saturday, revolutionary Guards spokesman General Mohammad Ali Naini stated that “the Iranian response will be wise, strong, and beyond the enemy’s expectations. Leaders of the Zionist regime should look out of their bedroom windows and protect their criminal pilots within their small territory.”

Ali Naini was likely referring to the direct hit by the Hezbollah drone on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vacation residence in Caesarea last month.

Two Iranian officials, one a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), reported that Israel struck the S-300 air defense of Imam Khomeini International Airport that provides defense for areas in Tehran.

In addition, at least three IRGC missile bases were hit, and Israeli drones targeted the secretive Parchin military base on the outskirts of Tehran, with one drone hitting the base and the others intercepted.

Israel has insisted that nuclear activities are being carried out at Parchin, and the UN’s IAEA nuclear watchdog in 2016 reportedly found evidence confirming this suspicion.

Benny Sabati, an Iran researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, told Maariv that an Iranian response to the IDF operation was guaranteed.

“If two or three weeks after our operation we heard public responses such as ‘nothing happened, minimal damage,’ it seems now the Iranians are assessing the damage and realizing there was indeed something significant,” Sabati said.

“The level of the threats Israel has been receiving in recent days is rising,” he explained.

Sabati added, “In Iran, they are saying they will prepare a response that Israel can’t withstand, that Israel will be defeated. The discourse of destruction is returning, and they are speaking as if the state is on the brink of collapse.”

He emphasized, “There is no way Iran will refrain from responding.”

Sabati reported in the interview that one of Khamenei’s advisors recommended a policy of threatening to hit Europe to put increased pressure on Israel.

He said that Khamenei’s advisors are saying, “We have restrained ourselves from extending the missile range to Europe, and now we might do it.”

“Iran is trying to create a new dynamic where others might come to restrain Israel. It’s like taking someone hostage: they are threatening Europe so that Europe will pressure us.”