Iran is preparing to "respond" to Israel, Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday, reported Reuters, which cited an interview published by Iran's Tasnim news agency.
Larijani added that the Iranian response will aim to restore “deterrence”, but did not provide further details.
The senior Iranian official also dismissed in the interview Israeli claims that it significantly depleted Hezbollah’s arms supplies during operations against the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon, quipping, “So where are the weapons coming from? Mars?”
On October 26, Israeli fighter jets struck Iranian military targets, a few weeks after Iran fired a barrage of about 200 ballistic missiles against Israel
Reports in late October indicated that Khamenei had instructed the Supreme National Security Council to prepare for a retaliatory attack on Israel.
An Israeli military source later told CNN that Israel is at a “high level of readiness” for a response from Iran.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian recently stated that Israel's stance regarding ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon could influence the "type and intensity" of his country’s response to the recent Israeli strikes on Iranian soil.
“If they reconsider their behavior, accept ceasefires (in Gaza and Lebanon) and stop killing the region's oppressed and innocent people, it may impact the type and intensity of our response,” he claimed.