Iran's president threatened Tuesday to destroy the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv if Israel makes even the smallest provocation against the Islamic Republic.
President Ebrahim Raisi spoke during Iran's National Army Day parade that also fell on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. Army Day celebrates Iran's regular military, not its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, whose forces operate across the Middle East and aid Iranian terror proxies, such as Lebanon's Hezbollah.
"The slightest mistake against our country will be responded with a harsh response and will be accompanied by the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv," Raisi said, according to an English language translation of his speech posted on his office's web page, according to The Jerusalem Post.
"The enemies of the Islamic Revolution, especially the Zionist Regime, have received the message of the power of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Raisi's comments came a day after Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Iranian Shah, arrived in Israel on a trip that showed Israel's embrace of the Iranian figure who is seeking a regime change in his home country. The comment also came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran as Israeli Defense Forces struck at Iranian-based targets, and Tehran is believed to be behind rocket attacks by Hamas against Israel's southern and northern border earlier this month.
Israel also is suspected of carrying out a series of attacks targeting Iran's nuclear and military sites since Tehran's nuclear deal with the U.S. and European leaders collapsed.
Speaking at a Yad Vashem national ceremony Monday night to mark the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened the Islamic Republic to Nazi Germany as an entity representing an existential threat to the Jewish people, reprising a theme from his previous speeches for the same occasion.
The Times of Israel reported Netanyahu said the calls to exterminate the Jewish people have not stopped, and most are coming from Iran. He stressed that past victories do not guarantee future victories, saying Israel must be able to "defend itself by itself against any enemy, any threat."