Netanyahu invokes Biblical Verse to justify strikes on Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invoked a provocative biblical reference before airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Just hours before Israel launched military strikes on Iranian territory, Netanyahu placed a handwritten note in the Western Wall in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday, quoting a verse from the Torah that inspired the name of the offensive, Operation Rising Lion. The note was made public on Friday.

The cited verse, from Numbers 23:24, reads: “Behold, a people that rises up as a lioness, and as a lion lifts himself up; he shall not lie down until he eats the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.”

Various locations in Iran, including in the capital, Tehran, have come under attack by the Israeli regime, and a number of top Iranian military commanders have been assassinated in targeted strikes in a major escalation.

Overnight on Friday, Israel began rounds of strikes in and near Tehran, as well as Natanz, Tabriz, Isfahan, Arak, and Shiraz, among other places.

The Israeli military also carried out targeted strikes against Iran’s top military brass. Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri and Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami were assassinated in Tehran.

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So were Commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh and Commander of Khatam al-Anbia Headquarters Major General Gholamali Rashid.

All of them were decorated veterans of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

Unconfirmed reports say Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and a former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has also been severely wounded in a targeted strike.

A number of top nuclear scientists were also targeted. Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, president of the Islamic Azad University, and Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, were among them. Tehranchi and Abbasi were reportedly targeted at their homes in the capital.