Iran's armed forces will strike at the heart of Israel if it makes "the slightest move" against the Islamic republic, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said at an annual military parade outside the capital Tehran on Monday.
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"If you make the slightest move against our nation ... our armed forces' destination will be the heart of the Zionist regime," the hard-line president, also known as the "Butcher of Tehran," said in a televised speech.
Raisi did not elaborate but said Iran watches any move by Israel "closely."
Monday's parade showcased jet fighters, helicopters, drones and air defense systems as well as military tanks, missiles and naval vessels. Troops marched in front of the podium where Raisi stood with army officers. Helicopters flew overhead and parachutists dropped down over the parade area near the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic state.
Israel, which the Islamic republic refuses to recognize, says it will not accept Iran as "a nuclear threshold state," while Tehran and world powers have been trying to revive a 2015 nuclear pact.
Along with Israel, moderate and Sunni Arab countries in the Middle East also oppose the West's efforts to revive the nuclear deal, which, similar to its 2015 predecessor, fails to sufficiently curb Iran's uranium enrichment activities, or address its ballistic weapons program and support for terrorist proxies across the region.
Almost a year of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington were suspended last month. Israel says it will not be bound by any deal and could eventually take unilateral action against Iranian nuclear sites.
On Saturday, meanwhile, Iran confirmed it had relocated a centrifuge facility to its underground Natanz nuclear site, days after the UN atomic watchdog said it installed surveillance cameras to monitor the new workshop at Tehran's request.
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted the spokesman for Iran's atomic energy organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, as saying authorities had moved the operation to a safer place.
Iran's centrifuge facility in Karaj found itself targeted in what Iran described as a sabotage attack in June. Natanz itself has twice been targeted in sabotage attacks amid uncertainty over the nuclear deal, assaults that Iran has blamed on Israel.
"Unfortunately, because of a terrorist operation that took place against Karaj, we were obliged to intensify security measures under which we moved an important part of the machines and transferred the rest to Natanz and Isfahan," said Kamalvandi. Isfahan is the location of another Iranian nuclear facility.
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