Iran’s government has urged foreign ambassadors in Tehran to warn them that it has a moral obligation to punish Israel’s “adventurism” and illegal actions, which led to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital a week ago.
Iran also plans to secure an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Wednesday to pressure Arab countries to support its right to take retaliatory measures against Israel.
The meeting will be held at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and many Gulf leaders have expressed a desire to condemn Israel’s actions but have also called on Iran to exercise restraint.
Israeli leaders say they are preparing for an Iranian-led attack. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that the Israeli military is ready to “rapidly transition to offense” in response to growing Iranian threats, echoing comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel is already in a multi-front war with Iran and its allies.
Iran’s late president, Ebrahim Raisi, had previously tried to gain support from Gulf states for military action or direct economic sanctions, but both efforts had failed.
Iran may wait until the outcome of the OIC meeting before launching any retaliatory measures, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has indicated he expects Iran to launch a series of coordinated attacks starting on Monday. President Joe Biden is due to meet with his national security team in Washington at 2:15pm local time, around 10pm in Tehran, by which time it is likely to become clearer whether Iran plans to launch overnight attacks.
Tehran airport canceled numerous arriving and departing flights on Sunday evening, suggesting fears that civilian aircraft could be caught up in military activity, including the January 2020 military conflict between the United States and Iran in which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner flying from Tehran to Kiev, killing all 176 people on board.
Russia’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu arrived in Tehran on Monday for talks with Iranian leaders, including President Massoud Pezechkian. Shoigu, Russia’s former defense minister, was fired from his post by President Vladimir Putin but remains a central figure in Russian-Iranian defense cooperation. There are no signs that Russia is urging restraint.
Iran says the planned missile strikes are needed to rebuild regional deterrence after the U.S. failed to control its ally Israel. “We all have a moral duty and responsibility not to be silent in the face of the occupation, expulsion and genocide of the Palestinian state,” Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri said in a meeting with foreign diplomats. He added that “indifference and appeasement towards evil and injustice are a form of moral negligence that allows evil to spread.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said at a weekly briefing that Tehran’s action was inevitable: “Iran aims to establish stability in the region, but this can only be achieved by punishing aggressors and creating a deterrent against the Zionist regime’s adventurism.” [Israel]Kanani called on the United States to end its support for Israel and said the international community should support “punishment of the aggressors” because they had failed in their obligation to maintain regional stability.
He added: “Terrorism is the essence of the Zionist regime, whose survival depends on the continuation of its state terrorism approach. The world should strongly condemn this crime and, secondly, support the punishment of the aggressors and avoid any approach that implies supporting the aggressors.”
His remarks were directed at Gulf countries, including Jordan, which on April 13 cooperated with Western countries to mitigate the impact of Iran’s attack on Israel in April this year, following the assassination of an IRGC commander at the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1.
Within Iran, those who suggested Israeli overreach could be used diplomatically or who urged caution appear to have been defeated by those who argued that Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi militias, Yemen’s Houthis, and Iran itself should launch a coordinated attack against Israel. In the April incident, Iran took 12 days to decide and launch a response. Iran used that time not only to coordinate its response but also to send a message that it did not want a regional war, which in turn led to the United States restraining Israel’s response.
Some of the messaging about the scale of the reaction on both sides is missing, but the longer the pause between Hamieh’s assassination and Iran’s response, the more time there is for diplomacy to reduce the room for misunderstanding.
On Monday, IRGC commander-in-chief Hossein Salami repeated the organization’s threat that Israel “will be punished in due time,” adding that Israel was digging its own grave.
Meanwhile, heavy fighting continued on Monday along the Blue Line, which separates the Gaza Strip from Israel and Lebanon.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched an early morning drone attack on northern Israel, and the Israeli army said two Israeli soldiers were wounded in the attack, while Lebanon’s state-run News Agency said two people, including a paramedic, were killed in an Israeli drone strike near a cemetery in a southern village.
In Gaza, Palestinian authorities said Israeli airstrikes killed five members of the Gaza Hamas-run police force guarding an aid convoy. The airstrikes, which targeted civilians, came after Israel attacked two schools and a hospital in Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 30 people.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas headquarters inside the school and that the attack on the hospital targeted militants, but did not provide further details or evidence.
The past 10 months of fighting have reduced Hamas’ ability to launch rocket and mortar attacks into Israeli territory, but the Israeli military said at least 15 shells were fired from Gaza on Monday, wounding one person.
Haniya’s assassination and its aftermath are widely expected to have a negative impact on internationally mediated talks aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the Gaza war and a hostage and prisoner release deal. Angry exchanges leaked to Israeli media over the weekend have raised concerns among Israeli defense officials that Netanyahu is avoiding decisions on the talks for political reasons.
