Iranian Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said on Sunday that Tehran will strike back if the United States or Israel attacks the country.
The remarks come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tel Aviv would respond to the Houthi attack on the David Ben-Gurion Airport at the ‘time and place of our choosing’ to Iran.
“If this war is initiated by the US or the Zionist regime (Israel), Iran will target their interests, bases, and forces – wherever they may be and whenever deemed necessary,” Nasirzadeh told Iranian state TV.
Netanyahu on Sunday vowed a multi-phased response to Yemen’s Houthis after the rebels fired a missile towards Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, injuring six people and prompting several major airlines to suspend flights.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
The Houthi attack on Israel’s David Ben-Gurion Airport
Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli police said air traffic to the country’s main airport in Tel Aviv was briefly closed after a missile was launched from Yemen.
The attack resulted in injuries to six people.
According to an AFP photographer, the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport’s largest. The crater was just hundreds of metres (yards) from the tarmac.
The Houthi rebels, who have been striking Israel throughout the war in Gaza in solidarity with Palestinians, said in a video statement that the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport, reported the Associated Press.
Israeli defense minister Israel Katz vowed retribution for the airport attack: “Whoever harms us, we will harm them sevenfold.”
Several airlines, including Air India, suspended flights to and from Tel Aviv after the incident.
