Netanyahu warns Iran of ‘sharp response’ amid reports of missile drills
Israel’s prime minister warned Iran on Monday that any hostile move would draw a sharp response, amid reports from Tehran that missile drills were under way in several cities.
Israel’s prime minister warned Iran on Monday that any hostile move would draw a sharp response, amid reports from Tehran that missile drills were under way in several cities.
“We are aware that Iran is conducting military exercises. We are making the necessary preparations,” Benjamin Netanyahu said when asked about the reported drills at a joint news conference with his counterparts from Greece and Cyprus.
“I want to make it clear to Tehran that any action will be met with a very sharp response.”
Iranian state media reported missile exercises on Monday in what officials described as a defensive show of force.
The IRGC-linked Fars News agency, citing field observations and public reports, said drills were observed in Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Khorramabad and Mahabad. Iran’s state broadcaster published videos that it later denied were missiles.
Netanyahu also said he planned to discuss Iran’s nuclear activities and broader regional threats with US President Donald Trump during an upcoming visit to the United States, adding that both countries’ “basic expectations” of Tehran had not changed.
The Israeli prime minister is scheduled to meet Trump on December 29 at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Axios reported on Monday that Israel had warned the United States that Iran’s missile drills could be used as cover for preparations for a surprise attack. US officials told the outlet, however, that Washington currently sees no indication of an imminent Iranian strike.
Tehran rejected any suggestion that the drills were provocative.
“Iran’s defensive capabilities are by no means an issue that can be discussed,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, adding that Iran’s missile program was strictly defensive.
The renewed tensions come against the backdrop of the brief but intense June conflict, during which Iran relied almost exclusively on missile strikes after Israeli attacks degraded its air defenses and senior military command.
The semi-official Fars news agency, citing field observations and public reports, said missile tests were observed in multiple locations, including Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Khorramabad and Mahabad.
Iran’s state broadcaster and the semi-official Nournews published videos that appeared to show missile launches, without specifying the exact locations. Other reports said launches took place in Tehran, Isfahan and Mashhad.
Earlier in the day, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei rejected any discussion of Iran’s military capabilities, saying the country’s missile program had been developed solely to defend Iran’s sovereignty and was not subject to negotiation.
“Iran’s defensive capabilities are by no means an issue that can be discussed,” he said.
The reports came a day after Axios said Israel had warned the United States that recent Iranian missile drills could be used as cover for preparations for a surprise attack, citing Israeli officials.
US officials told Axios, however, that Washington currently saw no indication of an imminent Iranian strike.
Iranian media said the satellites would be launched at 1648 local time (1318 GMT) aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far east. The payload includes Paya, also known as Tolou-3, Zafar-2 and a prototype satellite known as Kowsar-1.5.
Paya (Tolou-3) is Iran’s heaviest Earth-observation satellite to date, weighing about 150 kg, with imaging resolution of around five meters for black-and-white images and about 10 meters for color imagery, Iranian officials have said.
The satellite, made by the Iranian Space Agency, is designed for applications including agriculture monitoring, water resource management, environmental monitoring and disaster assessment.
Zafar-2, developed by Iran University of Science and Technology, is also an Earth-observation satellite intended for mapping, environmental monitoring and tracking natural hazards.
The Kowsar-1.5 satellite is a combined platform integrating imaging and internet-of-things capabilities, aimed primarily at smart agriculture and farm monitoring.
The Iranian satellites will be launched alongside a large cluster of mainly Russian spacecraft into a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit.
According to launch data, the mission also includes Russian Earth-observation satellites such as Aist-2T and Zorkiy-2M units, multiple Marafon and SITRO satellites designed for internet-of-things and ship-tracking services, as well as university-built and technology demonstration satellites from Russia and partner countries including Belarus, Kuwait and Montenegro.
Iran says its space activities are civilian and focused on scientific and economic uses, though Western governments argue that satellite launch technologies overlap with those used for long-range ballistic missiles.
Iran has increasingly relied on Russian launch services in recent years, even as it develops domestic launch sites and heavier rockets.
Ali Mohammad Naini, spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said Israel and its allies had pursued a dual strategy during the conflict: direct military confrontation alongside efforts to destabilize Iran from within.
“The enemy’s defeat in the 12-day war was precisely here,” Naini said. “They tried to drag the war inside the country, but that project failed.”
Naini was speaking at a meeting to organize commemorations for December 30, a state-marked anniversary tied to mass rallies that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election and the suppression of the Green Movement protests – one of the largest episodes of unrest in Iran’s recent history.
The Green Movement is often cited alongside the 2019 Bloody November protests and the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom demonstrations as the most significant challenges to the Islamic Republic since its founding.
Naini said Iran’s adversaries had assumed that air strikes would be followed by protests, riots or internal collapse, repeating what he described as a long-standing “illusion of chaos” rooted in past episodes of unrest.
“They sat in their war rooms with a wrong calculation, waiting for disorder, riots and the breakdown of the country from within,” he said.
Instead, Naini said the attacks were followed by large public reactions that included anti-Israel rallies and funerals for those killed, which he portrayed as demonstrations of national unity.
He said Israel underestimated what he described as a “fortress-like” popular cohesion and that attempts at what Iranian officials often call soft war or cognitive war aimed at weakening society from within were completely unsuccessful.
“The enemy shifted from military war to cognitive war, using pessimism, division and exaggerating social dissatisfaction to weaken the unity that was formed,” Naini said.
The remarks come as regional tensions remain high and as Israel weighs next steps.
NBC News reported over the weekend that Israeli officials are preparing to brief US President Donald Trump on options for possible new military strikes on Iran, citing concerns that Tehran is rebuilding facilities linked to ballistic missile production and repairing air defenses damaged in earlier attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to raise the issue during an upcoming meeting with Trump, including options for US support or participation in any future action, according to the report.
Trump has repeatedly said US strikes in June destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities and has warned Tehran against trying to rebuild them. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says its military and nuclear programs are defensive.
Naini said Iran continues to monitor what he described as hostile plans closely, adding that the lesson Iranian officials draw from both past unrest and the recent war is that internal cohesion remains decisive in confronting external threats.