IRAN SAYS IT HAS ‘LEGAL RIGHT’ TO HIT ISRAEL
Tehran signals it wants to avoid all-out war even as it warns that reinforcing stability in the region will be achieved by ‘punishing the aggressor’
Iran has signalled it wants to avoid all-out war with Israel, even as it said it has the “legal right” to respond to the assassination in Tehran last week of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, an attack blamed on Israel amid the Gaza war.
“No one has the right to doubt Iran’s legal right to punish the Zionist regime”, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told a regular news conference, referring to Israel.
“Reinforcing stability and security in the region will be achieved by punishing the aggressor and creating deterrence against Israel and its adventurism,” Kanani told reporters yesterday in Tehran.
The Islamic Republic had the right, within the framework of international law, to punish Israel but did not want to escalate tensions in the Middle East, he said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Israel killed Haniyeh using a “short-range projectile” launched from outside his residence in the Iranian capital, which he was visiting to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iran and Hamas, as well as other Tehran-aligned armed groups in the Middle East, have vowed to retaliate.
Israel’s in a “multi-front war against Iran’s axis of evil”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. “We are striking every one of its arms with great force. We are prepared for any scenario – both offensively and defensively.”
The US, which is moving a fighter jet squadron to the region and keeping an aircraft carrier nearby to help Israel, is pressing Netanyahu to redouble efforts to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas over their war in Gaza. The US and Arab states believe an end to fighting in the Palestinian territory would calm the region.
Group of Seven foreign ministers spoke on Sunday about the risks of a regional war. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was an “urgent need for de-escalation”.
Blinken told his G7 counterparts that an attack on Israel by Iran and Hezbollah could begin yesterday, Axios reported.
Haniyeh was killed just hours after a deadly air strike in Beirut against Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander. Israel said it was responsible for that hit and blamed Shukr for organising a rocket attack on the Israelicontrolled Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers playing football.
Hezbollah, which has been exchanging fire with Israel across Lebanon’s border since the war in Gaza started in October, has also threatened to retaliate against the Jewish state. The Shiite group may act in coordination with Iran, its sponsor.
Iran and Israel exchanged fire in April when Tehran accused its arch enemy of striking a consulate building in Syria. Iran launched 300 drones and missiles at Israel. Yet it effectively telegraphed the move in advance, helping Israel and its allies intercept almost all the projectiles and ensuring they caused little damage. Israel, under pressure from the US and Europe not to respond aggressively, launched a limited strike on an Iranian airbase.
This time, Iran’s revenge may be more fierce, given the sheer embarrassment of having a foreign dignitary assassinated in the heart of its capital. Its options range from another direct assault on Israel to getting its proxies to step up attacks to hitting Israeli targets across the world.
Hamas and Hezbollah are both designated terrorist organisations by the US and are part of what is often called Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance,’ a group of anti-Israel and anti-US militias in the Middle East.
The war in Gaza erupted when Hamas fighters swarmed into southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza has killed almost 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.