Iran has finished its largest-ever barrage of missiles fired at Israel, but warns that a retaliatory strike could warrant further ballistic response.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said during the Asia Cooperation Dialogue summit this week that Israel must not believe it can act with ‘impunity,’ according to Reuters.
‘Any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces,’ said Pezeshkian.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the heads of the country’s security establishment on Wednesday following Iran’s firing of 181 missiles into Israel amid fears that a lethal regional war is around the corner.
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar was also in attendance at the summit in Doha, where he called the ongoing violence in the Middle East a ‘collective genocide’ perpetuated by Israel, according to Reuters.
‘It has become crystal clear that what is happening is genocide, in addition to turning the Gaza Strip into an area unfit for human habitation, in preparation for displacement,’ the Qatari monarch said.
Iran’s strikes on Israel forced nearly 10 million people to find safety in bomb shelters on Tuesday.
The barrage of aerial warfare was the first time in Israeli history that the country’s densely populated cities – Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – in the center of the biblical nation, faced such devastating attacks.
The only fatality from the Iranian barrage was the murder of a Palestinian man in the West Bank (known in Israel by its biblical regional name of Judea and Samaria).
President Biden said Wednesday that he would not support an attack by Israel on Iranian nuclear sites in retaliation for Iran’s firing of 181 missiles at Israel amid fears that a lethal regional war is around the corner.
‘We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us [G7 nations] agree that they have a right to respond, but they should respond proportionally,’ he said.
But when asked whether he would back Israel striking Iranian nuclear sites as it has long threatened, Biden told reporters, ‘The answer is no.’
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.