TEL AVIV, April 19. /TASS/. The Israeli authorities will not officially take responsibility for the attack on Iran for strategic reasons, The Jerusalem Post reported, citing sources in the government and the country's security services.
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Israel retaliated the way it was attacked," the newspaper quoted the source as saying.
The newspaper's sorces explained that Israel will not take responsibility for the attack, as Tehran calls what happened a "factory explosion" and wants to avoid an escalation of tensions. Israeli sources also said that they did not understand why the Pentagon had leaked information about Israel's involvement in the attack to the media.
Israel believes that the US "should have remained silent" in order to "preserve Iran's dignity" and avoid an escalation of the situation, the newspaper said.
Earlier, ABC television reported, citing a US official, that Israel had launched a missile strike on a site in Iranian territory. CNN said, citing another US official, that the launch was an Israeli response to an Iranian attack on April 13.
Iranian media, for their part, reported that drones were spotted in the skies over Isfahan Province on Friday at around 3:00 a.m. local time (11:30 p.m. GMT on Thursday). According to Iranian media reports, three drones were downed by air defenses in the skies over the city of Isfahan. The Tasnim news agency, in turn, said that there were no missile attacks on Iranian territory. Iranian Army General Siyavush Mihandoust said that the loud sounds recorded in the Iranian city of Isfahan were "due to the work of [Isfahan's] air defenses on suspicious objects" and that no destruction or "accidents" were recorded in the city.