A senior Iranian official threatened Israel with retaliation over an airstrike in the Syrian Golan Heights in which an Iranian officer, General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, was killed along with members of the Hezbollah terrorist group.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television that Iran “has the right to respond to the Israeli aerial aggression”.

The interview aired following reports that Israel had sent Iran, through Russia, a message that it did not intend to further aggravate the situation, but Boroujerdi denied such a message was received by his country.

The remarks were echoed by the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Monday.

“The Islamic Republic has received no official or unofficial message from the illegitimate Zionist regime,” ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham Afkham said, according to the Tehran Times.

She added, “[Just] in a meeting with [the Iranian] deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, the United Nations secretary general’s envoy to Lebanon asked Iran’s assistance in establishing a truce in Southern Lebanon.”

Iran has several times threatened Israel over the January 18 airstrike. , General Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, threatened a missile attack on Israel, indicating it would come from Judea and Samaria and not from Lebanon.

Going further, Revolutionary Guards Minister Mohsen Rafighdoost said that the strike would pave the way for a war against Israel.

As well, a Farsi-language Iranian news site affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, has suggested that the sons of Israeli leaders are being targeted as a response to the Israeli airstrike.

Last week, a senior official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Ramezan Sharif, declared that the airstrike “will accelerate the collapse of the Zionist regime.”