Saudi Arabia has reacted to Israel deadly strikes that targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders.
Iranian media and witnesses reported explosions including at the country’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, while Israel declared a state of emergency in anticipation of retaliatory missile and drone strikes.
Iranian state television reported that Hossein Salami, the chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards corps, had been killed and the unit’s headquarters in Tehran had been hit. Several children had been killed in a strike on a residential area in the capital, it said.
“We are at a decisive moment in Israel’s history,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded video message.
Reacting to the attack “Saudi Arabia expresses its strong condemnation and denunciation of the blatant Israeli aggressions against the brotherly Islamic Republic of Iran, which undermine its sovereignty and security and constitute a clear violation of international laws and norms.”
“Moments ago Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”
Israel targeted Iranian scientists working on a nuclear bomb, its ballistic missile program and its Natanz uranium enrichment facility, in an operation that would continue for days, he said.
