Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei warns Israel will suffer ‘severe consequences’: ‘Blood-stained hand’

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Israel will face a "severe punishment" as the latter launched fresh strikes in Tehran early in the day.

Khamenei issued a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency. It confirmed that top military officials and scientists had been killed in the attack.

Israel “opened its wicked and blood-stained hand to a crime in our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential centers,” Khamenei said.

According to Iran International, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a statement, “In the early hours of today, the Zionist regime extended its evil and bloodstained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country, revealing its wicked nature more than ever by targeting residential areas.” 

“The regime [Israel] must await severe punishment,” he said. "By God’s will, the powerful arm of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces will not let it go unpunished," he added.

“In the enemy’s attacks, several commanders and scientists were martyred. Their successors and colleagues will immediately carry on their duties, God willing,” Iran's Supreme Leader said.

“With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself—and it will undoubtedly face it,” Khamenei said.

Israel strikes in Iran

Fresh explosions were reportedly heard in Tehran after Israel launched overnight strikes across Iran on Friday.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country launched Operation “Rising Lion” againt Iran on Friday. He said it's "a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival."

In a video statetement, Netanyahu said Israel's operation struck at the "heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment programme", taking aim at the atomic facility in Natanz and nuclear scientists.

Isarel told Iranian media that leaders' homes and not civilians were targeted in airstrikes in Tehran. The operation against Iran will "continue as many days as it takes," Netanyahu said.

Israel declared a state of emergency on Friday, warning of retaliatory action from Tehran after the Israelis launched a "preemptive strike" on Iran.

List of Iranian officials killed in Israeli strikes

Israel claimed on Friday it assassinated THESE officials in strikes on Friday:

1. Iran's Revolutionary Guards leader Hossein Salami
2. Iran's Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri
3.  Iran's armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri
4. Senior Revolutionary Guards commander Gholam Ali Rashid 
5. Top nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranch
6.  Nuclear scientist Fereydoun Abbasi