Iran’s Supreme Leader: Attack on Israel Was Minimal Response; Future Strikes Possible

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated that Tuesday’s Iranian strike on Israel was merely the “least punishment” and warned that the Islamic Republic would launch further attacks “if necessary.”

On Tuesday, Iran fired approximately 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, claiming the action was in retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and others.

“The brilliant action of our armed forces a couple of nights ago was completely legal and legitimate,” Khamenei said in a Friday speech in Tehran.

During the Islamic Friday prayers, Khamenei delivered his speech with what appeared to be a rifle barrel beside him.

This marked his first time leading Friday prayers in nearly five years, the last being in remembrance of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad.

On Tuesday, Khamenei ordered a missile attack on Israel, partly in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike the previous Friday.

He dedicated much of his speech to Nasrallah and praised Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, calling it “legitimate.”

The latter part of his sermon was delivered in Arabic to connect with Lebanese and Palestinian audiences, asserting that “Israel will never defeat Hamas and Hezbollah.”

“The people of Palestine have the right — in the face of the enemy who has taken over their land, their home, their farms and impacted their life — to stand up for themselves,” he said.

Almost a year after Hamas’ deadly attack on October 7, Israel is advancing on multiple fronts: conducting a ground incursion against Hezbollah in Lebanon, carrying out airstrikes in Gaza and Beirut, and threatening retaliation for Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this week.