Iran’s foreign minister on Friday refused to acknowledge that Israel was behind recent attacks on his country and described the weapons as more like children’s toys.
“What happened last night was not a strike,” Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in an interview with NBC News’ Tom Llamas. “They are more like toys for our children to play with. – Not a drone.
Amirabdollahian told NBC News in an interview while attending a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York that Iran did not plan to respond unless Israel launched a major attack.
“As long as Israel does not adopt new adventurism against our interests, we will not make any new reactions,” he said.
But the foreign minister warned that if Israel did attack Iran, Iran would respond quickly and harshly.
“If Israel takes decisive action against our country, and this is proven to us, we will immediately react to the fullest extent and make them regret it,” he said.
The latest cycle of violence between Israel and Iran began on April 1, when Israel Bombing of the Iranian Consulate Building In the Syrian capital Damascus, two generals and five officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were killed.
Twelve days later, Iran responded by launching Unprecedented direct military attack on Israel More than 300 missiles and drones were involved. However, the attack did not cause significant damage. Nearly all missiles and drones were intercepted by Israeli, U.S. and other allied forces.
Amira Abdullahian said the attack was intended to “send a warning”. “We could have attacked Haifa and Tel Aviv,” he said. “We can also target all economic ports in Israel.”
“But our red line is civilians,” he added. “We only have military purposes.”
Even though Israel is under blockade shadow war Iran’s air interception marked Tehran’s first overt military attack on Israel after decades of cooperation with Israel in arming and training proxy forces hostile to Israel in Palestinian enclaves in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip.
In the days that followed, the Biden administration urged Israel to exercise restraint and refrain from retaliatory attacks that could trigger an all-out war between the two long-time rivals.
However, Israel retaliated late Thursday, attacking a military airport near the central Iranian city of Isfahan. According to Iranian state media, there was no damage to nuclear facilities in the area and no casualties were reported.
Iranian state media downplayed the attack, and Israeli officials have remained largely silent. Experts said the limited scope of the strike and the lack of public statements afterward seemed to indicate both sides were seeking to ease tensions.
U.S. officials called for calm. “We don’t want to see an escalation,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday.
The Biden administration has accused Iran of being “complicit” in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, noting that Tehran has been arming and training Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip for years.
Iran claims to support Hamas, but the government says it did not order or coordinate the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people.
Amira Abdullahian said in an interview that Iran had no prior knowledge of the Hamas attack. He also said that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a liberation movement that opposes Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.
He called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netahayu “insane” and blamed the Israeli government for the deadlock in hostage negotiations. He accused Israel of making exorbitant demands to make up for what it failed to achieve in the Gaza war.
“It cannot destroy Hamas or arrest its leaders in Gaza, it cannot disarm Hamas, it cannot destroy weapons and equipment,” Amira Abdullahian said.
“So it has to resort to killing women and children,” he added, “and now at the negotiating table they are trying to get what they can’t get.”
Still, the foreign minister said he hoped to reach an agreement soon to release the hostages as part of a broad solution. Hamas “is ready to release prisoners in the form of an all-encompassing humanitarian political programme.”
“I think now is a good time,” he said. “This is a good opportunity.”
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