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Continued Israeli attacks would draw even more painful and forceful responses, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said during a phone call with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on Sunday, according to Iranian state media.
“We were not the ones who started this war, but we responded decisively,” he said.
Pezeshkian called Israel’s strike on Iranian territory via Iraqi airspace a clear act of aggression and urged Baghdad to better safeguard its skies.
Iran would pay a very heavy price for killing civilians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after a missile strike hit a residential building in Bat Yam early Sunday, killing six Israelis and wounding dozens more.
“Iran will pay a very heavy price for the murder of civilians — women, children — that it carried out deliberately,” Netanyahu said at the scene, according to a statement from his office.
“We will achieve our objectives, and we will strike them with overwhelming force.”
Four more people were killed in a separate strike on the northern town of Tamra. Netanyahu framed the confrontation as existential.
“Think about what would happen if Iran had a nuclear weapon to drop on Israel’s cities,” he warned. “That is why we launched a war of rescue… Our soldiers, our pilots, are above the skies of Iran.”
He expressed condolences to the victims’ families and urged the public to follow safety instructions from the Home Front Command.
“Protect your lives — and together, with God’s help, we will win,” he said.
Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group in Iraq, warned it would strike US bases in the region if the United States intervenes in the conflict between Iran and Israel.
The group said it is closely monitoring the military movements of the Americans in the region.
