DUBAI, November 19. /TASS/. The Iranian armed forces weakened the Israeli Iron Dome air defense system during previous strikes on the Jewish state on April 13 and October 1, a senior military officer with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, the elite unit of Iran's armed forces) reported on Tuesday.

"The Zionist regime [Israel] has suffered a military setback," Major-General Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of the paramilitary Basij forces within the IRGC, was quoted as saying by SNN TV channel. "Their so-called Iron Dome was deactivated during the first and second operations 'True Promise' [on April 13 and October 1, 2024], and now the missiles of the resistance forces successfully hit targets every day in the occupied territory."

Soleimani stressed it was essential to inform the world that Israel had failed and now survives solely relying on support from the United States.

Iran’s massive rocket and missile strikes on Israeli territory in April 2024 were carried out in retaliation for the Israeli shelling of the Iranian Consulate General’s office in Damascus, Syria, and were named operation "True Promise-1."

On October 1, Iran launched another large-scale rocket and missile strike against Israel in retaliation for the killing of senior officials from the Palestinian movement Hamas, the Lebanon-based Shia movement Hezbollah, and the IRGC. The operation was called "True Promise 2."