Iran’s secretive new supreme leader on Thursday vowed to keep up attacks on Gulf Arab countries and use the effective closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz as leverage against the United States and Israel. It was his first public statement since being chosen to succeed his father, who was killed in an Israeli strike.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, who Israel suspects was wounded in the opening salvo of the war, has not appeared in public since then. In the statement read by a state TV news anchor, he vowed to avenge those killed in the war, including in a strike on a school that killed over 165 people.

The statement signaled a willingness to continue the war that has disrupted global energy supplies, international travel and the relative safety enjoyed by the Gulf Arab states. Iran’s unrelenting attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf had earlier pushed oil back above $100 a barrel.

In other developments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli attacks have killed top Iranian nuclear scientists.

Speaking Thursday night at a news conference, Netanyahu denounced Iran’s new supreme leader as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards” who cannot appear in public. And he addressed the Iranian people, saying the moment for a “new path of freedom” was approaching and that Israel stands with them.

“But at the end of the day, it depends on you. It is in your hands,” he said.