Iran makes first nuclear threat over possible Israeli attack as US and UK slap fresh sanctions on Tehran

A senior Iranian commander has issued Tehran’s first nuclear threat since it launched a missile and drone attack against Israel as it looks to warn off a retaliatory assault.

Israel has yet to decide — or at least announce publicly — how to respond to the Iranian attack last weekend, which saw Tehran fire more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel.

But several members of its five-person war cabinet have alluded to military retaliation despite calls from Israel’s western partners to act with both their head and their heart.

On Thursday, senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Haghtalab warned that Israel’s recent threats to respond “make it possible to review our nuclear doctrine and deviate from our previous considerations”.

He added that if Israel was to attack its nuclear centres, “we will surely reciprocate with advanced missiles against their own nuclear sites”.

It is the first time Iran has explicitly referenced its suspected nuclear weapons programme since it launched its attack against Israel.

And it comes a day after Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi warned that even the “tiniest” invasion of its territory would bring a “massive and harsh” response.

Experts have warned that since Donald Trump abandoned a nuclear pact between Iran and the US, Tehran has become capable of building a nuclear bomb in six months to a year.

While one senior US official told ABC News that Israel was likely to hold off its response to the Iranian attack until after Passover, the major Jewish holiday that lasts from Monday to 30 April, top Israeli officials remain tight-lipped about their intentions.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following a meeting with UK foreign secretary David Cameron on Wednesday, said it was