Tehran has warned that a ground offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip would be met with a response from other fronts.
The Iran-backed, Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier for days, further raising tensions as Israel bombards the Gaza Strip to the south following an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian armed group Hamas inside Israel last week.
“All possible options and scenarios are there for Hezbollah … Naturally, resistance leaders will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action in Gaza, and when it feels reassured about Gaza, move on to other resistance areas in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a live broadcast to state TV late on Monday, as he referred to his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah the previous day
The Iran-backed, Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier for days, further raising tensions as Israel bombards the Gaza Strip to the south following an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian armed group Hamas inside Israel last week.
“All possible options and scenarios are there for Hezbollah … Naturally, resistance leaders will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action in Gaza, and when it feels reassured about Gaza, move on to other resistance areas in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a live broadcast to state TV late on Monday, as he referred to his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah the previous day.
Therefore, any preemptive measure is imaginable in the coming hours.”
Amirabdollahian also said “the resistance leaders” will not allow Israel “to do whatever it wants in Gaza”.
“If we don’t defend Gaza today, tomorrow we have to defend against these [phosphorus] bombs in the children’s hospital of our own country,” he added, referring to allegations by human rights groups that Israel has been using phosphorus bombs in its aerial bombardment of Gaza. Israel has denied the allegation.
Reporting from southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said Amirabdollahian was seen “as the strongest yet”.
“Hezbollah has been engaged with Israel along the border for more than a week now. But that cross-border exchange of fire has been largely limited in scope and confined to the border areas and military targets,” she said, adding, however, that tensions were rising.
“People are worrying and bracing for the possibility of this conflict, which is now confined to the south of the country, to spread elsewhere.
“If the measures aimed at immediately stopping the Israeli attacks that are killing children in the Gaza Strip end in a deadlock, it is highly probable that many other fronts will be opened. This option is not ruled out and this is becoming increasingly more probable,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
