Iran’s supreme leader threatens Israel and U.S. with ’a crushing response’ over Israeli attack

Iran's supreme leader threatens Israel and the U.S. with a crushing response, escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday (November 2, 2024) threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its October 26 on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people.

Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just head of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday (November 5, 2024).

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

The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack, nor the scope. The U.S. military operates throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.

The 85-year-old Khamenei had struck a more cautious approach in earlier remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed.”

But efforts by Iran to downplay the attack faltered as satellite photos analysed by The Associated Press showed attacks damaged military bases near Tehran linked to the country’s ballistic missile programme, as well as damage at a Revolutionary Guard base used in satellite launches.