Iran issued a harsh warning to Israel on Monday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fiery speech at last weekend's Munich Security Conference, in which he made it clear Israel will not tolerate Iranian aggression.
"Israel will not allow Iran's regime to put a noose of terror around our neck," Netanyahu said. "We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves, and we will act, if necessary, not just against Iran's proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself."
As part of the speech, the prime minister presented conference goers with a piece of an Iranian drone that breached Israeli airspace on Feb. 10.
"About Netanyahu's unwise words, I should say that if they carry out the slightest unwise move against Iran, we will level Tel Aviv to the ground," said Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Expediency Council and former chief of the country's Revolutionary Guards, according to a CNN report.
Rezaie also said he will "not give any opportunity for Netanyahu to flee" with his life if Israel strikes Iran, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
Dismissing Netanyahu's address as a "theatrical move and a childish game," Rezaei said that "U.S. and Israeli leaders don't know Iran and don't understand the power of resistance, and therefore they continuously face defeat.
"Today, the situation of the U.S. and Israel indicates their fear of the Zionist regime's collapse and of the U.S.'s decline," he stated.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded to Netanyahu's speech, saying that "you were the audience for a cartoonish circus just this morning, which does not even deserve a dignity of a response."
Tensions between Iran and Israel have escalated in the past few months.
Last week's Iranian drone incursion met a harsh Israeli response, which saw Israeli fighter jets attack 12 targets in Syria, including four Iranian assets, among them the drone's command post near Palmyra. Massive Syrian anti-aircraft fire was, however, able to down an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, which crashed on the Israeli side of the border.
