"In response to the numerous crimes committed by the Zionist regime, including the attack on the consular section... the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired dozens of missiles and drones at specific targets inside the occupied territories (Israel)," state television quoted a Guards statement as saying.

Operation Honest Promise is "being carried out with the approval of the Supreme National Security Council under the supervision of the General Staff of the Armed Forces," the Guards statement said.

Within minutes of the launch, the account on X of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reposted his pledge that the "evil (Israeli) regime will be punished".

Almost an hour after the drones were launched, the Guards fired a "first batch of ballistic missiles at targets deep in the occupied territories (Israel)," the official IRNA news agency said.

The April 1 strike, which was widely blamed on Israel, levelled the five-storey consular annexe of the Iranian embassy in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.