What happened last night was not a strike, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian told NBC News, stressing that “these were more toys that our children play with, not drones.”
Abdollahian, who is in New York to attend a meeting of the UN Security Council, said Iran was not preparing a response until Israel launched a major attack.
“As long as Israel does not undertake a new adventure against our interests, we are preparing a new response,” said Iran’s foreign minister, warning that if Israel does attack Iran, the response will be “quick and severe.”
Yesterday it was reported that Israel retaliated against Iran early in the morning. Iranian media reported about the explosions heard in the city of Spahan in the central part of the country. An Iranian official told Reuters that there was no missile attack and that the explosions were the result of the activation of Iran’s air defense systems.
Referring to the fact that several hundred anti-aircraft missiles and rockets were fired at Israel on the night of April 14, the Iranian Foreign Minister stressed that it was a “warning” strike. “We could hit Haifa and Tel Aviv. We could also target all of Israel’s economic ports. But our red lines are civilians. Our goal was only military,” Abdollahian said.
On the night of April 14, Iran launched several hundred air defense systems and rockets in the direction of Israel in response to the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, as a result of which a high-ranking Iranian military officer was killed. Iran’s attack had no serious consequences: Israel and its allies destroyed most of the ATSs and missiles in the air.
Tehran said the attack was in response to an Israeli airstrike on the consular section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1, which killed Iranian officials.