Iran plans ‘harsh, unimaginable’ response to Israeli strikes amid escalating row

Concerns about an Iran-Israel war continued to loom over the Middle East this week with both sides threatening harsh reprisals. Senior Iranian officials have indicated plans to launch “unimaginable” response to recent Israeli strikes in the coming days. Meanwhile Tel Aviv insisted that it would hit back “very hard” in case Tehran launched a fresh attack.
It was not immediately clear when such an attack would take place with contradictory reports emerging this week. According to a New York Times report quoting officials in the know, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had ordered plans drawn up by his Supreme National Security Council on Monday. The publication said a retaliatory attack would only come after the US elections on November 5.
“Iran’s response to the Zionist aggression is definite. We have never left an aggression unanswered in 40 years. We are capable of destroying all that the Zionists possess with one operation,” local media reported General Ali Fadavi — the deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps — as saying.
US news website Axios also cited two unidentified Israeli sources to report on Thursday that Iran is preparing to attack Israel from Iraq within days.
Oil prices also rose by 2% on Friday amid buzz about the retaliatory strike even as benchmarks remained set for a weekly decline. Brent is on track to finish the week down almost 2%, having tumbled 6% on Monday after the October 26 attack by Israel bypassed oil and nuclear facilities.
The two countries have engaged in a series of tit-for-tat strikes within the broader Middle East warfare set off by fighting in Gaza. Previous Iranian air attacks on Israel on October 1 and in April were mostly repelled, with only minor damage.