A senior Iranian diplomat says the Islamic Republic inflicted “heavy” and “extensive” damage on Israel during its US-backed aggression of June against Iran.
Speaking on Monday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in the course of the aggression, Iran dealt a “severe blow” to Israel, which had remained arrogant since the wars in the 1960s, particularly the Six-Day War and subsequent conflicts with Arabs.
“During the war, we inflicted very heavy losses upon the Zionist regime, only a portion of which was made public. Israel itself prevented the full disclosure of the extent of damage caused by Iran’s missile attacks.”
“The reports and images we received from various satellites, together with information obtained from multiple sources in the Israeli-occupied territories, all indicated that the damage sustained [by the regime] was absolutely extensive.”
He said Iranian missiles penetrated through the host of defense systems deployed by several countries aimed at shooting them down in mid-air.
"The Zionist regime represents the Western countries, particularly the United States, will all its weaponry."
"It also has every defensive and protective measure supplied by certain European states. This conflict was not merely a war between Iran and the Zionist regime; rather, all of these actors were involved," Gharibabadi said.
Israel launched its blatant aggression against Iran on June 13, killing at least 1,064 people and targeting civilian infrastructure. More than a week later, the United States violated international law by joining the war and targeting three Iranian nuclear sites.
On June 24, Iran managed to impose a halt to the aggression after conducting waves of successful retaliatory operations.
Israel did not achieve its strategic objectives and suffered a major defeat, the deputy foreign minister said, emphasizing that the situation reached the point where the US itself requested a ceasefire.
Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naeini, a spokesman for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said on December 7 that during the 12-day war, Iran hit Israel’s largest oil refinery in Haifa twice and killed 36 at a raid targeting a facility of the Mossad spy agency.
Iran fired 14 missiles at the al-Udeid air base in Qatar, the most important US base in the region, with six of them hitting the target, he added. The Americans, as asserted by themselves, spent 111 million dollars on tracking Iranian missiles.
Israel waged the aggression against Iran after a “miscalculation,” assuming that the country was weakened and unable to respond to the regime’s attacks, Naeini said.
Press TV’s website