Photo: Amer Hilabi Agence France-Presse Iran's Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri
Rania Sanjar – Agence France-Presse in Jeddah
Published at 12:25
- Middle East
Iran on Thursday accused Israel of seeking to “expand the war” in the Middle East and vowed a costly response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, as diplomatic efforts continue to avoid a military escalation in the region.
Israel made a “strategic mistake” that will “cost it dearly” by killing Hamas’s political leader in Tehran on July 31, Iranian acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri said in an interview with AFP in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Although Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death, Bagheri accused the country of seeking to “expand the tension, war and conflict to other countries,” while saying it was in no position to “start a war” against Iran. “They don't have the capacity or the strength,” he added.
Regional tensions have escalated following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, and that on July 30 of Fuad Shokr, the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, who was killed in an Israeli strike near Beirut.
Iran, along with Hamas and Hezbollah, has accused Israel of killing Haniyeh.
On Tuesday, Hamas defied Israel by appointing Yahya Sinwar, who Israeli authorities accuse of being one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.
Since then, all attempts at mediation have failed and the The war, which Hamas says has left nearly 40,000 dead in the small besieged Palestinian territory, has rekindled tensions in the Middle East between Iran and the armed groups it supports, including Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, and Israel.
The leader of the Houthi rebels reiterated his threats on Thursday to retaliate against an Israeli attack on a port controlled by his group.
Faced with the risks of an extension of the war, the international community is trying to find ways to calm the situation and restart negotiations with a view to a ceasefire associated with the release of the hostages held in Gaza.
Contacts are increasing, particularly between the mediating countries in the Gaza conflict: the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, whose country is Israel's main ally, asked Iran and Israel on Tuesday to avoid a military “escalation”.
“Stay safe”
“International contacts are continuing for a de-escalation […] but we must remain cautious even if the tension has relatively decreased over the last two days,” a ministerial source in Beirut told AFP on Thursday.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Lebanon, overflown several times in recent days by Israeli military planes at low altitude, remains on alert, as does Israel and in particular the north of the country, which borders southern Lebanon. Exchanges of fire along this border between the Israeli army and Hezbollah have become almost daily since the start of the war in Gaza.
In Israel, several newspapers seemed to believe in a more moderate response from Iran, after the calls for revenge that followed the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. “The United States hopes to have deterred a major Iranian strike on Israel while Hezbollah remains a free agent,” wrote the daily Haaretz.
“The prevailing sentiment is that Hezbollah is determined to attack Israel, while Iran has begun to question the wisdom of this course of action,” Israel's leading daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
The Times of Israel quoted U.S. officials as saying they believed Iran would retaliate, but in a more measured manner and not immediately.
Israel, for its part, has vowed to “eliminate” Yahya Sinwar, the current leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, who has not appeared in public since October 7.
See also
- Israel promises to eliminate the new leader of Hamas
- Lebanese Hezbollah leader vows response against Israel
- Diplomatic maneuvers to avoid military escalation in the Middle East
New call to evacuate
After ten months of war, the Israeli army is continuing its offensive against Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, particularly in areas it had claimed to have taken control of.
On Thursday, the army once again called on the population to evacuate several sectors of Khan Younes, the large city in the south of the territory destroyed by several months of fighting.
This call concerns neighborhoods from where “rockets were fired,” according to the army.
According to AFP journalists, bombings targeted the northern city of Gaza overnight, killing eight people there, according to doctors.
The Civil Defense said five bodies were found in a bombed house in Khan Younis.
The attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos in southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom are dead, according to the army.
In retaliation, Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far killed 39,699 people, including at least 22 in 24 hours, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilian and combatant deaths.
The offensive has plunged the territory into a humanitarian disaster and displaced nearly all of its 2.4 million residents.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that it would send more than a million polio vaccines to the territory, as a strain of the virus has been detected in sewage samples.