BERLIN, August 2. /TASS/. Israel will give a very tough response if it is attacked by Iran, Tzachi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security Council, said.
"We are keeping an eye on our enemies so that they realize that any attack on us will get a response that will make them regret their aggression," Hanegbi said in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper. "Our advice to Iran and, in particular, Iran’s supreme leader, is not to go down this path. An attack on Israel would be something Tehran would have to pay a painful price for. I hope they will not do that," he stressed, adding that such an attack would be a mistake.
Hanegbi noted that Israel would not only focus on defense the way it had done after Iran’s attack on April 14. "We are now in a different situation. One can hold back only once," the Israeli security official noted.
However, Hanegbi rejected international criticism of Israel. "We are the victims of aggression, which has been going on for ten months. When our friends suggest we do our best to prevent an escalation, I get it," he said. "We don’t want a large-scale war. We don’t want an escalation," the head of Israel’s National Security Council concluded.
Earlier, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Bagheri said that Tehran and its regional allies would avenge Israel for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Palestinian movement Hamas.
On July 31, Hamas reported Haniyeh's death in an Israeli strike on his residence in Tehran, where he had attended the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The Al Hadath TV channel reported that Haniyeh had been killed in a direct missile strike. Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau, vowed that Haniyeh’s killing would not go unanswered. A sourcer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told TASS that the Israeli military did not comment on reports of Haniyeh’s death.