Tehran, Iran – Iran has warned Israel of regional escalation if the Israeli army enters Gaza for a ground invasion as the war with Hamas enters its second week.
“If the measures aimed at immediately stopping the Israeli attacks that are killing children in the Gaza Strip end in a deadlock, it is very likely that many other fronts will open. This possibility is not ruled out and it is becoming increasingly likely,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
“If it is a Zionist entity [Israel] If he decides to enter Gaza, the resistance leaders will turn it into a cemetery for the soldiers of the occupation,” he added.
Since the Palestinian armed group Hamas launched one an unprecedented attack On October 7, Israeli airstrikes killed more than 2,670 people inside Israeli territory – a quarter of them children – and injured nearly 10,000 others in Gaza, where a catastrophic humanitarian crisis is unfolding.
The United Nations estimates one million people, almost Half the population of Gaza – have been forced out of their homes as the Israeli army prepares for an expected ground invasion.
At least 1,400 people, including 289 soldiers and some foreign nationals, have been killed on the Israeli side, officials said Sunday.
Tehran has rejected claims that it was directly involved in Hamas’ attack on Israel last weekend.
Amir-Abdollahian met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar on Saturday and discussed the Gaza crisis “and agreed to continue cooperation,” Hamas said in a statement.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said all Islamic nations have an obligation to come to the aid of the Palestinians.
By the grace of God, this movement has begun #Palestine he will advance and achieve complete victory for the Palestinians.
Imam Khamenei
October 14, 2023 pic.twitter.com/euuXmBfV7G— Khamenei Media (@Khamenei_m) October 14, 2023
Iran has also launched a diplomatic offensive in Gaza in an attempt to stop Israeli attacks.
Amir-Abdollahian also visited Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, and met President Bashar al-Assad after Israel bombed the airports in Aleppo and Damascus.
Earlier on Sunday, the Iranian minister met with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha.
“If the attacks of the Zionist regime continue against civilians and the defenseless people of Gaza, no one can guarantee that the situation will be under control and that the scope of the fighting will not expand,” said the Emir of Qatar in a telephone conversation with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
Amir-Abdollahian reiterated that Tehran has called for an urgent meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for Gaza.
The regional power Saudi Arabia seems to have put its own normalization talks with Israel waiting, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday making speeches With the president of Iran during the Israel-Hamas war – their first phone call since the restoration of diplomatic relations.
Meanwhile, Israel is also preparing for the possibility of the war spreading to multiple fronts. He said he bombed Syrian airfields to thwart potential Iranian mobilization efforts.
On Sunday, Israel declared its border with Lebanon a closed military zone as clashes with Hezbollah continued.
On Saturday, US news website Axios reported that Iran has warned Israel through the UN that it does not want the Gaza conflict to escalate, but will have to respond if Israeli attacks continue.
Iran has not officially commented on the Axios report.
Iranian media have reported on the latest events, especially the losses Israel suffered from Hamas attacks last week.
In the first days of the war, several Iranian newspapers used an image of Palestinians standing on top of a captured Israeli tank and waving the Palestinian flag as their cover.
“Deadly wound” – said “Iran”, the official newspaper of the government, which in its opinion showed the scenes created by Hamas in the occupied territories “appearing apocalyptic” and showing “cowardly Zionists fleeing”.
According to the ultra-conservative Kayhan newspaper, whose editor-in-chief was directly appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei, four “disasters” await Israel if it decides to go ahead with a ground attack on Gaza: heavy casualties due to the complexity of urban warfare; endangering the lives of dozens of Israelis taken captive by Hamas; in the face of increasing pressure from the international community; and the increasing “isolation of the region”. expectations of normalization disappear.
Khorasan, another conservative newspaper, ran the headline “Unprecedented humiliation of the lost horse” earlier this week, referring to comments made by Khamenei, who warned that any country that decides to normalize relations with Israel will take it. “losing bet”.
“The Europeans say they are betting on a losing horse,” Khamenei said.
But highlighting the massive success in Israeli territory and how it retaliated by targeting civilians in Gaza was not limited to conservative newspapers. More moderate and reformist media also raised similar issues in their coverage of the conflict.
“Black Saturday in Israel” was the headline of the reformist Shargh, while Etemad defined that Hamas “attacked the heart of occupied Palestine”.
Etemad also stressed that the 2.2 million Gazans at risk and Israel’s order to force more than a million to flee Gaza was “impossible” because it cut off water, electricity and internet. The newspaper also condemned it Israel’s illegal use of white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.
“The political situation inside Israel is changing rapidly [Israeli PM] “Benjamin Netanyahu and the coalition took over from the resistance forces that were supposed to strike the Zionist regime,” he wrote.
