Iran on Thursday accused Israel of seeking to “expand the war” in the Middle East and vowed a costly response after 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’ political leader in Tehran on July 31, Iranian interim 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 wanting to “spread tension, war and conflict to other countries,” while saying it was not in a position to “start a war” against Iran. “They have neither the capacity nor the strength,” he added.
Regional tensions have redoubled following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, and that, on July 30, of Fouad Chokr, the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, 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 as its leader Yahya Sinwar, accused by Israeli authorities of being one of the masterminds of the attack launched on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.
Since then, all attempts at mediation have failed and 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, on the one hand, and Israel on the other.
The leader of the Houthi rebels on Thursday reiterated his threats of retaliation for 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 of appeasement and to relaunch 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.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose country is Israel’s main ally, on Tuesday called on Iran and Israel to avoid a military “escalation.”
” To be careful “
“International contacts continue 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.
Lebanon, overflown several times these days by Israeli military planes at low altitude, remains on alert, as does Israel and in particular the north of the country, bordering southern Lebanon. Exchanges of fire, along this border, between the Israeli army and Hezbollah have become almost daily since the beginning 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 electron,” the daily wrote. 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 respond, but in a more measured manner and not immediately.
Israel, for its part, has promised to “eliminate” Yahya Sinwar, until now the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, who has not appeared in public since October 7.
New call to evacuate
After ten months of war, the Israeli army is continuing its offensive against Hamas, in power since 2007 in Gaza and considered a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Israel, particularly in areas which it had claimed to have taken control of.
On Thursday, the army once again called on the population to evacuate several areas of Khan Younis, the large city in the south of the territory destroyed by several months of fighting.
The call concerns neighborhoods from where “rockets were fired,” according to the army.
According to AFP journalists, bombings targeted the northern city of Gaza during the night. Eight people were killed there, according to medics.
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 abducted, 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 Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed.
The offensive plunged the territory into a humanitarian disaster and led to the displacement of almost all of its 2.4 million inhabitants.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that it would send more than a million polio vaccines there, as a strain of the virus was detected in wastewater samples.