Iran mocks Israel’s ‘weak’ attacks as hardliners call for reprisal

A billboard in Enghelab Square, Tehran, on Saturday. The Persian reads: ‘If you want war, we are the master of war’ and the Hebrew: ‘Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth and this is the beginning of the story.’ Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

The Iranian government has belittled the scale and effectiveness of the Israeli attack on its military sites, but hardliners in the parliament insisted the strikes breached Iranian red lines and required a swift response, preferably at a time when Israel is already enmeshed in Lebanon and Gaza.

The internal Iranian debate on how to respond to the long-awaited Israeli attack turns on whether to treat Israel’s breach of Iranian national sovereignty as too grave to be ignored, or instead to heed the advice coming from the region and from the US to acknowledge the relatively limited nature of the attack and to step back from the brink by not launching reprisals.