Iran’s acting top diplomat dismisses US-proposed Gaza deal in visit to Lebanon

Iran’s acting foreign minister dismisses a Gaza ceasefire deal proposed by US President Joe Biden and warns Israel against launching an all-out war on Lebanon during a visit to Beirut, his first official diplomatic visit since his predecessor died last month.

Ali Bagheri Kani replaced Hossein Amirabdollahian, a hard-liner close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19 in a mountainous area near Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, along with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and a delegation of other officials.

Tehran, a key backer of the Palestinian terror group in the Gaza Strip, backs a number of armed factions in the region, of which Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah is widely seen as the most powerful. Hezbollah would be Tehran’s first line of defense in case of a direct conflict between Iran and Israel.

Hezbollah has been clashing with Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border since October, against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The cross-border fighting has intensified in recent weeks, since Israel’s incursion into the key town of Rafah in southern Gaza.

“If the Americans are honest, then instead of proposing plans under the name of ceasefire, they must take one step, which is end all aid to the Israeli entity,” Bagheri Kani says in a news conference at the Iranian embassy in Beirut. “Only once the aid is cut from the Israeli entity, the entity won’t have the tools and ability to commit crimes against the Palestinians and the war will end.”