Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that Israel’s attacks during last month’s 12-day war were intended to weaken the Islamic Republic’s system and spark unrest to topple it.

“The calculation and plan of the aggressors was to weaken the system by targeting certain figures and sensitive centers in Iran,” Khamenei said in a statement published on his website.

He said the move was meant to stir “unrest and bring people into the streets to overthrow the system.”

Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile facilities on June 13, starting a war that the United States later joined.

Israel said its sweeping assault — which began 61 days after US President Donald Trump set a 60-day deadline for a nuclear deal, and targeted Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program — was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.

Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. Israel said Iran had recently taken steps toward nuclear weaponization.

Iranian authorities said more than 1,000 people were killed in Iran.

Political leaders were spared from the attacks, and Defense Minister Israel Katz asserted that “regime change was not a goal” of the war.

However, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused Israel of trying to kill him, and Iranian media on Sunday reported that early in the war, Israel bombed a building where Pezeshkian was meeting with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He escaped with only a leg injury, the report said.

Khamenei reportedly spent the war in a secret bunker somewhere in eastern Iran.

On June 22, Israel’s ally, the United States, launched unprecedented strikes of its own on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz.

Iran is ready to respond to any renewed military attack, Khamenei said in comments carried by state TV on Wednesday, claiming Tehran was capable of giving a bigger blow to adversaries than the one delivered during the Iran-Israel war last month.

Iran retaliated against Israel’s strikes by launching over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel. The attacks killed 29 people and wounded over 3,000 in Israel, according to health officials and hospitals. Iran also attacked a US base in Qatar in retaliation for Washington’s strikes.

Khamenei said that the US is complicit in Israel’s “crimes.” Fighting the US and its “dog on a leash” Israel is praiseworthy, he said.

Israel’s attacks took place two days before Iran and the US were scheduled to meet for a sixth round of nuclear talks, which had begun on April 12. The talks have not since resumed.

Tehran has reiterated that it remains open to diplomacy provided that Washington offers guarantees it will not resort to military action against the Islamic Republic.

On Wednesday, Iran’s parliament ruled out negotiations without meeting certain “preconditions,” without specifying any of them.

In his statement, Khamenei said Iranian diplomacy and the military should exercise “care and precision” in the way ahead, without elaborating.