Iran claims it does not want to escalate regional tensions, but must ‘punish’ Israel
Tehran says it needs to ‘create deterrence’ after killing of Haniyeh; top revolutionary Guard commander says Israel ‘digging its own grave’ and ‘will receive punishment in due time’
Iran said Monday that while not looking to escalate regional tensions, it believes it needs to punish Israel to prevent further instability, following the killing of Hamas terror group leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week.
“Iran seeks to establish stability in the region, but this will only come with punishing the aggressor and creating deterrence against the adventurism of the Zionist regime,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said, adding that action from Tehran was inevitable.
Kanaani called on the United States to stop supporting Israel, saying the international community had failed in its duty to safeguard stability in the region and should support the “punishment of the aggressor.”
The assessment that Iran is likely to attack Israel in the coming days or weeks follows last week’s back-to-back assassinations of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut by an Israeli strike and Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran has blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death and has vowed to retaliate.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ top commander Hossein Salami on Monday reiterated the elite group’s threat that Israel “will receive punishment in due time.”
Salami, speaking to journalists at an event, warned that Israel was “digging its own grave” with its actions.
“When they receive a blow, they will notice they are making mistakes. They are making mistakes all the time,” Salami said in his speech at the Day of the Journalists event. “They will see the result of their mistake. They will see when, how and where they will get their response.”
Salami also touched on long-held suspicions about an Israeli assassination program targeting Iran’s nuclear scientists amid concerns over the country’s atomic program. Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels — to levels that have no civilian use — but claims its program is peaceful.
“Israel is the cradle of terrorism and it has been created out of killing and murder,” he alleged. “They think they can kill the nuclear scientists of another country and impede that country’s path toward peaceful nuclear technology. They think that by killing the leader of a resistance group… in another country will give them more time to live.”
He added: “They are just digging their own grave.”
Israel and the US were said on Sunday to be unsure what an attack by Iran could look like, believing Tehran has yet to come to a final decision and was unlikely to have finished coordinating with its proxies.
Israeli officials have reportedly conceded that there may be damage and casualties.
US President Joe Biden will convene his national security team in the situation room on Monday to discuss developments in the Middle East, the White House said, with the US said to believe an Iranian attack on Israel is imminent. Israel is also bracing for a response from Tehran-backed Hezbollah.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told counterparts from G7 countries on Sunday that Washington believes an Iranian attack on Israel could begin within the next 24 to 48 hours, Axios reported, citing sources briefed on the call.
According to the report, Blinken spoke with his counterparts amid efforts by the US to de-escalate tensions in the region and prevent the eruption of an all-out war.
At the same time as Israel and the US prepare for whatever attack Iran ultimately chooses to launch, Washington and its allies, both in the West and in the Middle East, have continued to push both Israel and Iran to de-escalate the situation, and to avoid the possibility of triggering an all-out regional war.
While tensions have ramped up considerably following the assassination of Shukr and Haniyeh, the region has been in turmoil since October 7, when Hamas launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
