Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday that Israel will face “severe punishment” over its attack on the country.

Khamenei issued a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency. It also confirmed that top military officials and scientists had been killed in the attack.

Israel “opened its wicked and blood-stained hand to commit a crime against our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential centers,” Khamenei said.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami was killed in the Israeli military operation. He was a veteran officer close to the supreme leader and known for his tirades against Israel and its US ally.

“If you make the slightest mistake, we will open the gates of hell for you,” the white-bearded general warned Tehran’s arch foes during a tour of an underground missile base in January.

An Israeli military official said that the Israeli Air Force targeted Iranian nuclear and military sites, without identifying them.

Israel for years has warned it will not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon, something Tehran insists it does not want – though officials there have repeatedly warned it could.