Netanyahu claims Iran will pay for 'big mistake' after missile attack

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Iran will face retaliation after its missile attack on his country.

BBC reported the hardline leader as saying that Iran "made a big mistake and will pay for it".

The Israeli PM said Iran "does not understand" his country's "determination to retaliate" against its enemies.

"They will understand. We will stand by the rule we established: whoever attacks us, we will attack them," Netanyahu (above) said.

CNN reported the Israeli military as saying that one Palestinian had died in Jericho as a result of the attacks, while several others were injured.

Reporters on the ground in Israel observed dozens of missiles piercing through the skies as sirens blasted across the country.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said later on Tuesday that the attack by Iran was “effectively defeated”.

William Cohen, a former US defence secretary who served from 1997 to 2001 under Bill Clinton, said Israel would “conceivably” target the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme in his revenge attacks.

Legitimate rights

Earlier, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country’s missile attack on Israel was based on its legitimate rights against the Zionist regime following the recent killings of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Abbas Nilforushan.

He claimed that the missile action was in defence of the interests and citizens of Iran.

The IRGC on Tuesday evening had launched dozens of missiles against Israeli military bases, including one which houses F-35 aircraft.

The IRGC used hypersonic Fattah missiles to destroy the radar of the vaunted Israeli Arrow anti-missile systems, Iranian media reported.

“In response to the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah, and Abbas Nilforushan, we targeted the heart of the occupied territories,” the IRGC said in a statement.

Israel assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran after the Palestinian leader attended the swearing-in ceremony of Pezeshkian in July.

Last week, the Israeli military assassinated Nasrallah, Nilforushan, and other Hezbollah leaders, wiping out an entire densely populated southern Beirut neighbourhood by reportedly dropping 85 American bombs, each weighing 1,000kg.

Yesterday, Israel invaded Lebanon as part of an escalation in the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict.

According to the Israeli Defence Forces, the operation seeks to root out Hezbollah's forces and infrastructure that pose a threat to civilian communities in northern Israel.

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