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Iran ready to strike Israel again once 'conditions are ripe' — senior IRGC commander

According to Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Tehran "is sad to see that [Israel] has been committing crimes in Palestine for nearly nine months with the support of the US and its European allies"

DUBAI, July 2. /TASS/. Tehran is ready to carry out another massive strike on Israel but "conditions aren’t ripe yet for Iran to take direct action against" the Jewish state, Major General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Forces, said.

"We wish for an opportunity to carry out Operation True Promise 2; I don’t know how many projectiles will need to be fired this time," he noted, as cited by the Tasnim news agency. Operation True Promise is the codename given by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the IRGC leadership to the attack on Israel, which was conducted in response to the airstrike on Tehran’s consulate in Syria and involved at least 300 projectiles and drones.

According to the general, Tehran "is sad to see that [Israel] has been committing crimes in Palestine for nearly nine months with the support of the US and its European allies." "Although we have the strength, our hands are tied because conditions aren’t ripe yet [for Iran] to take direct action against [the Jewish state]," he explained. "Looking at the weapons that our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon have, one clearly understands that in fact, it’s Iran that is providing assistance and maintenance to them," the IRGC Aerospace Forces commander said.

Iran’s regional allies, described by Tehran as the Axis of Resistance, include Muslim paramilitary groups, composed mostly of Shiite fighters. Among them are the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, the Lebanese party Hezbollah, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Yemen's rebel Ansar Allah Houthi movement.

On the evening of April 13, Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel in response to what it called "repeated crimes," including an attack on the consular office of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus ascribed to Israel. Iran’s state-run media outlets said that military facilities in Israel were targeted. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed it intercepted 99% of the Iranian projectiles, saying that minor damage had been caused to Nevatim Air Base.

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