Middle East crisis live: Iran supreme leader expected to speak after Israeli airstrikes; at least 40 reported killed in Gaza

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expected to make public comments about Saturday’s attacks, New York Times reports

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has made his first public comments since the Israeli airstrikes on his country. He said that Israel’s attack on Iran this weekend “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” though he stopped short of calling for retaliation. Here is some of what he said in a meeting with the families of the four members of the armed forces who were killed in the attack:

“The evil committed by the Zionist regime (Israel) two nights ago should neither be downplayed nor exaggerated”, IRNA cited Khamenei as saying.

He described the Israeli airstrikes as “malignant”.

“The calculation error of the Zionist regime must be disrupted. They do not know Iran, its youth, its nation. They have not yet been able to fully comprehend the power, capabilities, initiative and will of the Iranian nation, we must make them understand it,” Al Jazeera quoted the Iranian supreme leader – the ultimate authority in Iran – as saying.

“It would be wrong for us to say that it was nothing and it did not matter,” Khamenei said, adding that Israel has tried to exaggerate the impact of the airstrikes.

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