Iran’s so-called “Supreme Leader” has called for a direct attack on Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike on Tehran, Iran’s capital city, that killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday.
The New York Times reported:
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly, in retaliation for the killing in Tehran of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, according to three Iranian officials briefed on the order.
Mr. Khamenei gave the order at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning, shortly after Iran announced that Mr. Haniyeh had been killed, said the three Iranian officials, including two members of the Revolutionary Guards. They asked that their names not be published because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Israel has not yet directly claimed responsibility for the airstrike.
An Iranian attack on Israel in April involved some 300 projectiles, almost all of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and those of allies in the region.
Many countries have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon, and some U.S. carriers have canceled flights to Israel, in anticipation of a possible war between Israel and Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy in Lebanon.
Israel killed Hezbollah’s second-in-command in an airstrike on Beirut on Tuesday.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
