Iran’s Supreme Leader Threatens Israel and US With ‘Crushing Response’

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the US with “a crushing response” to attacks on Iran and its allies.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials increasingly threaten another attack Israel after the October 26 attack on the Islamic Republicc that targeted military bases and other locations, killing at least five people.

Any further attacks from either side could engulf the broader Middle East, already reeling from the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a broader regional conflict just before the US presidential election Tuesday.

“The enemies, whether it is the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will certainly receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran, the Iranian nation and the resistance front,” Khamenei said in a video released by Iranian state media .

The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack or its scale. The US military operates at bases throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery (THAAD) in Israel.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is likely in the Arabian Sea, and Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and B-52 long-range bombers would come to the region to deter Iran. and its militant allies.

Khamenei, 85, had taken a more cautious stance in earlier comments, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should not be exaggerated or downplayed.” Iran has launched two major direct attacks on Israel, in April and October.

But efforts by Iran to downplay the Israeli attack failed when satellite photos analyzed by the Associated Press showed damage to military bases near Tehran linked to the country’s ballistic missile program, as well as to a Revolutionary Guard base used during satellite launches.

Iran’s allies, called the “Axis of the Resistance” by Tehranhave also been seriously affected by continued Israeli attacks, especially the Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran has long used these groups as both an asymmetric way to attack Israel and as a shield against a direct attack. Some analysts believe these groups want Iran to do more to support them militarily.

Iran, however, faces its own problems at home as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and has faced years of widespread, multiple protests. After Khamenei’s speech, Iran’s rial fell to 691,500 against the dollar, near an all-time low. It was 32,000 rials per dollar when Tehran reached its nuclear deal with world powers in 2015.

General Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, which controls the ballistic missiles needed to target Israel, gave an interview published by the semi-official Fars news agency just before Khamenei’s comments were released. In it, he warned that Iran’s response “will be wise, strong and beyond the understanding of the enemy.”

“The leaders of the Zionist regime must look out of their bedroom windows and protect their criminal pilots within their small territory,” he warned. Israeli Air Force pilots appear to have used air-launched ballistic missiles in the October 26 attack.

Khamenei met with university students on Saturday to mark Students’ Day, which commemorates a November 4, 1978 incident in which Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting against the Shah’s rule at the University of Tehran. The shooting killed and injured several students, and tensions over Iran at the time further escalated, eventually leading to the Shah fleeing the country and the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The crowd gave Khamenei a raucous welcome and chanted: “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also made a hand gesture — similar to a “time out” signal — given by slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a 2020 speech in which he threatened that US troops arriving in the Middle East standing up would be “horizontally placed in coffins would return’.

Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the US Embassy hostage crisis this Sunday, according to the Persian calendar. The storming of the embassy by Muslim students on November 4, 1979 sparked the 444-day crisis, deepening the decades-long enmity between Tehran and Washington that continues today.

Eleven people were injured in an attack on a city in central Israel early Saturday, with Iran’s supreme leader last week promising a punitive response to Israel’s attack.

In central Israel, an attack from Lebanon fired on a building in the predominantly Israeli Arab city of Tira on Saturday, wounding 11 people, according to Magen David Adom emergency services.

The Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had used missiles and explosive drones to attack military and intelligence facilities in northern and central Israel. It claimed responsibility for firing rockets at the Israeli army’s Unit 8200 base in Glilot, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, and for firing rockets at military facilities in Zvulun. Tira is located about 20 kilometers from Glilot. Hezbollah also said it had attacked Israel’s Palmachim central air base with explosive drones, saying they “scored precise hits on targets.”

The Israeli military did not confirm whether any of the three Hezbollah targets had been hit and said it had no comment on the group’s claims.

Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut injured 11 people on Saturday afternoon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

In a separate incident, a Lebanese ship captain was taken by a group of armed men who landed on a coast north of Beirut, Lebanese authorities said on Saturday. Officials said the incident happened at dawn on Friday and authorities were investigating whether Israel was involved.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the matter. In the past, Israel has conducted commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap or assassinate Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.

In the Gaza Strip, Israel has also stepped up its offensive against remaining Hamas fighters, raising concerns about humanitarian conditions for civilians still living there.

A series of Israeli attacks on Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, killed at least 42 people in 24 hours, more than half of them women and children, says Dr. Marwan Abu Naser, director of the Al-Awda hospital that housed the victims, told the Associated Press. Another 150 were injured, he said.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 hostages to Gaza. Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and fighters, but say more than half of the enclave’s deaths are women and children.

Gambrell writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Adam Schreck in Jerusalem, Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv and Shlomo Mor in Tira, as well as Times staff, contributed to this report.