Tehran wants to pass off its unprecedented attack, launched on the night of Saturday to Sunday against Israel, as a simple first warning. Iran thus called on the Jewish state this Sunday not to react militarily to this attack, which it presented as a justified response to the strike which destroyed its consulate in Damascus.
“The case can be considered closed,” announced the Iranian mission to the UN in a message posted three hours after the start of its operation. But, she immediately warned, “if the Israeli regime made another mistake, Iran’s response would be considerably more severe.”
Iran considers its action as “self-defense”
No leader of the Islamic Republic spoke during the night to justify this first attack to directly target Israel since the 1979 revolution in Iran. It was carried out by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of power, who launched dozens of drones and missiles towards military sites on Israeli territory.
This “military action by Iran is a response to the aggression of the Zionist regime against our diplomatic premises in Damascus,” explained the Iranian mission to the UN. It was “carried out on the basis of Article 51 of the United Nations Charter relating to self-defense”, according to her.
In the last two weeks, the Iranian authorities had affirmed their desire to “punish” Israel after the death of seven Revolutionary Guards, including two generals of the Quds Force, in the destruction of the Iranian consulate in Syria by a strike attributed to Israel on April 1st. Israel “will be slapped”, warned the Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Since the 1979 revolution, Israel has been the sworn enemy of the Islamic Republic, which calls for its destruction in favor of a Palestinian state. But, until now, Tehran had refrained from attacking it head-on, preferring to support the actions carried out by other members of the “axis of resistance”, including Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthi rebels.
The United States warned
During the night, Tehran also warned the United States, urging them to “stay away” from its conflict with Israel. “Any threat emanating from the American terrorist government and the Zionist regime (…) will result in a reciprocal and proportionate response from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Revolutionary Guards warned early this Sunday.
The Israeli authorities had not revealed their intentions this Sunday morning. But they had not ruled out, before the attack, striking on Iranian territory, probably targeting military or nuclear sites according to experts.