Iran ‘delivered a hand slap to America’s face’: Ayatollah Khamenei

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday claimed victory over Israel and said his country had “delivered a hand slap to America's face”, in his first public comments since a ceasefire was declared in the war between the two countries.

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Khamenei spoke in a video broadcast on Iranian state television, his first appearance since June 19.

He told viewers that the US had only intervened in the war because “it felt that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed”.

He said, however, the US “achieved no gains from this war”.

“The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America's face,” he said, in apparent reference to an Iranian missile attack on an American base in Qatar on Monday, which caused no casualties.