Iran‘s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said the United States hit Tehran’s nuclear sites but achieved ‘nothing significant’, as he vowed his country would ‘never surrender’ to its enemies.

Khamenei condemned what he called Donald Trump‘s ‘showmanship’ and claimed that the US President ‘exaggerated’ the impact of the strikes on three nuclear sites ‘because he needed to.’

‘Anyone who heard [Trump’s] remarks could tell there was a different reality behind his words – they could do nothing,’ the 86-year-old Iranian leader said.

The supreme leader also declared victory over Israel, despite scores of top officials and nuclear scientists being assassinated by Iran’s arch enemy over the course of the 12-day conflict.

Both Iran and Israel had already claimed they won the short-lived confrontation, the  deadliest and most destructive in their shared history, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailing on it a ‘historic victory’ for Israel. 

Khamenei broke his silence on the US strikes in a video broadcast on Iranian state television from his bunker hideout, his first appearance since June 19 and first public comments since a ceasefire was declared.

He taunted Israel by saying that the US had only decided to join the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan because ‘it felt that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed.’ 

He repeated his previous declaration that surrender to the US would ‘never happen’ and boasted that America had ‘achieved no gains from this war.’

‘The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America’s face,’ he claimed, in apparent reference to an Iranian missile attack on an American base in Qatar on Monday, which caused no casualties.

Khamenei hasn’t been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war June 13 when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and targeted top military commanders and scientists. 

Following a massive American attack on June 22 that hit the nuclear sites with bunker-buster bombs, Trump was able to help negotiate a ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday.

Khamenei released a video message during the war, and Iranian state television and the supreme leader’s own social media pages announced that he would be releasing another video message to Iran on Thursday.

In his first comment posted on X earlier, he offered his ‘congratulations on the victory’ over Israel.

Shortly after Khamenei delivered his speech, Netanyahu shared a statement saying he would continue to work with President Trump to ‘defeat our common enemies, free our hostages, and quickly expand the circle of peace’.

The Israeli leader posted the message with a picture of himself and Trump holding hands, alongside his statement and an earlier post by the US leader saying they had ‘been through hell together.’

Speaking at a Pentagon press conference today, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth hailed the strike as ‘historic’ and one which ‘created the conditions to end the 12-day war’. 

He listed off quotes from various agencies which he said proved the success of the operation.

Israel’s atomic agency said the US attack ‘rendered [Iranian] enrichment facilities inoperable’, he quoted.

He then pointed to the assessment by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, saying though ‘the UN is no friend of the United States – or certainly Israel, often,’ it believed there was ‘enormous damage’ to the facilities.

Hegseth did not mention a suggestion made by the UN agency’s chief, Rafael Grossi, that there was a possibility that Tehran had already moved much of its highly enriched uranium before the US bombs fell.

On Tuesday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted that the ‘aggressor enemy failed’ to destroy his country’s nuclear sites.

On the same day, CNN and The New York Times reported on a leaked US intelligence report which suggested the strikes had only set Iran’s nuclear programme back ‘a few months’.

But this was furiously denied by Trump and his top officials, who labelled it ‘fake news’ and insisted the nuclear sites had been ‘obliterated’. 

Last night, the head of the CIA John Ratcliffe said that the US strikes had left Iran’s nuclear facilities ‘severely damaged’ and set them back years.

The Trump-appointed intelligence chief said that ‘several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years’.

The Israeli military meanwhile said it had delivered a ‘significant’ blow to Iran’s nuclear sites but that it was ‘still early’ to fully assess the damage.