A day after the assassination of Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered a direct attack on Israel in retaliation, reported the New York Times citing three Iranian officials, briefed on the order, including two members of the Revolutionary Guards.

The orders by Khamenei came at an emergency meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning. While Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of the assassination, Israel has neither acknowledged nor denied killing Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran when he went there for the inauguration of Iran's new president.

According to the New York Times, Israel has previously too killed its enemies abroad, including Iranian nuclear scientists and military commanders. Iran has attempted to achieve a balance over the nearly ten months of Israel Gaza conflict by increasing pressure on Israel through its friends and proxy forces in the area, all the while preventing a full-scale conflict between the two countries.

Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones in April in retaliation for an Israeli strike on its embassy compound that killed senior Iranian military leaders in the Syrian capital of Damascus. This was Iran's largest and most overt attack against Israel.

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"Now it is unclear how forcefully Iran will respond, and whether it will once again calibrate its attack to steer clear of escalation. Iranian military commanders are considering another combination attack of drones and missiles on military targets in the vicinity of Tel Aviv and Haifa, but would make a point of avoiding strikes on civilian targets," the Iranian officials said.

Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters and is also the commander in chief of the armed forces, instructed military commanders from the Revolutionary Guards and the army to prepare plans for both an attack and a defence in case the war expands and Israel or the US strike Iran, the officials said.

In his public statement about Haniyeh's death, Khamenei signalled that Iran would retaliate directly, saying, "we see avenging his blood our duty," because it happened on the territory of the Islamic Republic. He said Israel had set the stage for receiving "a severe punishment," New York Times reported.

(With inputs from ANI)