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Iran's retaliatory attack on Israel part of 'tough new strategy': Tehran

This spells a dramatic shift from past years in which Iran and Israel have fought a shadow war of proxy fights and covert operations across the Middle East and sometimes further afield.

AFP

Israel's military said it intercepted 99 percent of the aerial threats with the help of the United States and other allies, and that the overnight attack caused only minor damage. / Photo: AFP

Iran's missile and drone barrage against Israel was the first act of a tough new strategy, Tehran has said, warning Israel that any future attack will spark "a direct and punishing response".

Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles, including from its own territory, directly at Israel on Saturday, to retaliate for a deadly April 1 strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus.

Israel's military said it intercepted 99 percent of the aerial threats with the help of the United States and other allies, and that the overnight attack caused only minor damage.

Iran said it had dealt "heavy blows" to Israel and hailed the operation as "successful".

President Ebrahim Raisi said the operation had "opened a new page" and "taught the Zionist enemy (Israel) a lesson".

Iran said it acted in self-defence after the Damascus strike levelled the consular annexe of its embassy and killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals.

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'A new equation'

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has frequently called for Israel's destruction and made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy. But it had refrained from directly striking Israel.

A 2020 report by the Washington Institute said that Tehran had adopted a policy of "strategic patience", which had "served it well since the inception of the Islamic republic in 1979".

Former president Hassan Rouhani was a staunch defender of the strategy, especially following Washington's 2018 withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal, advocating for Tehran not to take immediate countermeasures and taking a longer view.

After the 2020 US killing of Qasem Soleimani, an IRGC commander, Tehran gave prior warning to Washington, US sources said, before it launched missiles against two American bases in Iraq, and no soldiers were killed in the attack.

After Saturday's attack on Israel, Guards chief Hossein Salami said Iran was "creating a new equation".

"Should the Zionist regime attack our interests, our assets, our personnel and citizens at any point, we will counterattack it from the Islamic Republic of Iran," he was quoted as saying by local media.

The attack was also hailed as a "historic" success by Iranian media, with the government-run newspaper Iran believing the offensive "has created a new power equation in the region".

The Ham Mihan newspaper claimed that the attack "ended the status quo and broke the rules of the conflict that pitted the two sides against each other for 20 years and pushed the situation into another phase".

"This is no longer a shadow war," it argued.