"What happened last night was not a strike," the foreign minister, Hossein Amir-abdollahian, said in an interview with NBC News' Tom Llamas. "They were more like toys that our children play with – not drones."
Amir-abdollahian, who spoke to NBC News in New York where he was attending a UN Security Council session, said Iran was not planning to respond unless Israel launches a significant attack.
"As long as there is no new adventurism by Israel against our interests, then we are not going to have any new reactions," he said.
"If Israel takes a decisive action against my country and this is proven to us," he said, "our response will be immediate and to the maximum and will cause them to regret it."
Amir-abdollahian said the attack was intended to be "a warning." "We could have hit Haifa and Tel Aviv," he said. "We could have also targeted all the economic ports of Israel."
"But our red lines was civilians," he added. "We only had a military purpose."
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps launched a missile and drone operation dubbed 'True Promise' against the Zionist regime on the night of April 13 in response to an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate on April 1.
Iran’s anti-Israel operation was conducted by Shahed 131/136 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles, Emad ballistic missiles, and Paveh cruise missiles.
RHM/PR