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Iran’s foreign minister warned Friday that Lebanese and Palestinian militants have “their finger on the trigger” ahead of an Israeli offensive in the Hamas-led Gaza Strip.
Iran’s clerical state backs Hamas, whose bloody attack on Israel on Oct. 7 prompted primary retaliation, and has close ties to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite defense force that fires on Israel.
“What I understood from what they told me and the plans they have is that they have their finger on the trigger,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said of the Lebanese and Palestinian activists he met.
Speaking to U. S. National Public Radio from the United Nations, where he attended a General Assembly consultation on the crisis, Amir-Abdollahian said the activists’ moves would be “much harsher and deeper than what they have witnessed. “
“Therefore, I believe that if this scenario persists and women, young people and civilians continue to be killed in Gaza and the West Bank, anything will be possible,” he said.
Amir-Abdollahian, however, insisted that the militants would do so on their own and not on orders from Iran.
“We don’t need this standoff to spread,” he said.
His comments came after U. S. President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes on two sites in Syria believed to be used by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
The Pentagon described the moves as measured retaliation for actions taken by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, which left one U. S. citizen dead in an attack on the center and 21 U. S. service members wounded.
On October 7, Hamas militants invaded the Gaza Strip border, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 220 hostages, in the worst bloodshed in Israel’s history.
Israel retaliated with a relentless bombing campaign that, according to Gaza’s Hamas-led Ministry of Health, killed 7,326 people, most of them civilians, in addition to 3,038 children.
SCT/DW