Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reiterated his threat of retaliatory action against Israel, following a suspected Israeli airstrike on an Iranian embassy compound in Syria.
The airstrike was just like an attack on Iranian territory, the religious leader said on Wednesday at a prayer ceremony to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Israel had made a mistake and "must and will be punished."
Khamenei is the most powerful man in the Islamic Republic and has the final say in all strategic matters. He is also commander-in-chief of Iran's armed forces.
Khamenei criticized Western allies of Israel, in particular the US and the United Kingdom. They should have stopped Israel's actions in Gaza, he said, but had failed to fulfil their duty. "These governments have shown the world the evil nature of Western civilization."
Two brigadier generals and five other members of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) were killed in an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in the Syrian capital Damascus at the beginning of April. Since then, the Iranian leadership has several times threatened to retaliate.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz reacted to the renewed threat from Tehran by stating that Israel would respond to any retaliatory strike. "If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran," he wrote in a post in Farsi on the online platform X, formerly Twitter. He also shared the same text in Hebrew and tagged Khamenei.
Israel has been Iran's declared arch-enemy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The decades-old tensions between the two countries has escalated following the outbreak of the Gaza war last October.
