Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people, the Associated Press reported.

Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just ahead of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday.

“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media.

The supreme leader did not elaborate on the timing of the threatened attack, nor the scope. The U.S. military operates throughout the Middle East, with some troops now manning a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery in Israel.

The 85-year-old Khamenei had struck a more cautious approach in earlier remarks, saying officials would weigh Iran’s response and that Israel’s attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed.”

But efforts by Iran to downplay the attack faltered as satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed attacks damaged military bases near Tehran linked to the country’s ballistic missile program, as well as damage at a Revolutionary Guard base used in satellite launches.

Iran’s allies, called the “Axis of Resistance” by Tehran, also have been severely hurt by ongoing Israeli attacks, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran long has used those groups as both an asymmetrical way to attack Israel and as a shield against a direct assault. Some analysts believe those groups want Iran to do more to back them militarily.

Iran, however, has been dealing with its own problems at home, as its economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions and it has faced years of widespread, multiple protests.

Gen. Mohammad Ali Naini, a spokesman for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard which controls the ballistic missiles needed to target Israel, gave an interview published by the semiofficial Fars news agency just before Khamenei’s remarks were released. In it, he warned Iran’s response “will be wise, powerful and beyond the enemy’s comprehension.”

“The leaders of the Zionist regime should look out from the windows of their bedrooms and protect their criminal pilots within their small territory,” he warned.

Khamenei on Saturday met with university students to mark Students Day, which commemorates a Nov. 4, 1978, incident in which Iranian soldiers opened fire on students protesting the rule of the shah at Tehran University. The shooting killed and wounded several students and further escalated the tensions consuming Iran at the time that eventually led to the shah fleeing the country and the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The crowd offered a raucous welcome to Khamenei, chanting: “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader!” Some also made a hand gesture — similar to a “timeout” signal — given by the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2020 in a speech in which he threatened that American troops who arrived in the Mideast standing up would “return in coffins” horizontally.

Iran will mark the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis this Sunday, following the Persian calendar. The Nov. 4, 1979, storming of the embassy by Islamist students led to the 444-day crisis, which cemented the decades-long enmity between Tehran and Washington that persists today.

Seven people including five schoolchildren were killed in a blast that hit a police van in Pakistan's Balochistan province on Friday, local media reported.

Thirty-nine others were injured in the blast which took place near a girls' high school in the Mastung district of the southwestern Balochistan province, Geo News reported.

Those killed included also a policeman. Four policemen are among the injured.

Several other vehicles, including rickshaws, present near the blast site were also damaged in the blast which was triggered by a remote-controlled explosive device.

The ages of the deceased schoolchildren, which include girls and boys, are between 10 to 13 years old.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Israeli intelligence suggests Iran is preparing to attack Israel from Iraqi territory in the coming days, possibly before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, Axios reported on Thursday, citing two unidentified Israeli sources.

The attack is expected to be carried out from Iraq using a large number of drones and ballistic missiles, the Axios report added according to Reuters.

The report said that carrying out the attack through pro-Iran militias in Iraq could be an attempt by Tehran to avoid another Israeli attack against strategic targets in Iran.

Israel and Iran have engaged in a series of tit-for-tat military strikes, part of broader Middle East warfare set off by fighting in Gaza.

On Saturday, Israeli military jets struck missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran in retaliation for Tehran's Oct. 1 barrage of more than 200 missiles against Israel.

A spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Monday Tehran would "use all available tools" to respond to the Israeli strikes.