Tehran
\nIran will throw all of its military power behind Hezbollah if Israel launches a full-scale attack on the Lebanon-based Islamist movement, a senior official in Tehran has warned. He added, however, that his country does not want an all-out war in the Middle East.
\nTensions between the Jewish state and the Shia group, which has close ties with Iran, reached boiling point after the start of the Hamas-Israel war in October, with the two belligerents exchanging cross-border strikes. However, they have so far managed to avoid a major engagement.
\nIn an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday, Kamal Kharrazi, a foreign affairs adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reiterated that Iran is \u201cnot interested\u201d in a regional war. He urged the US, Israel\u2019s key ally, to put pressure on West Jerusalem to prevent such escalation.
\nHowever, Kharrazi insisted that \u201call Lebanese people, Arab countries, and members of the axis of resistance will support Lebanon against Israel\u201d if efforts to avoid a major conflict prove unsuccessful. \u201cIn that situation, we would have no choice but to support Hezbollah by all means,\u201d he said.
\nThe so-called \u2018axis of resistance\u2019 is an informal alliance that seeks to challenge US and Israeli power in the region, and comprises Iran, Hamas, the Syrian government, the Houthis in Yemen, Islamic militia in Iraq, and several other militant groups.
\nTehran is unlikely to launch a direct strike on Israel in response to an attack against Hezbollah, an Iranian official told the FT. Instead, it would probably use Islamic militant groups to retaliate, they added.
\nHowever, Iran took direct action against Israel in April after claiming that the Jewish state had attacked Tehran\u2019s consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing several Iranian military officers. It launched a large drone raid on Israeli territory, and West Jerusalem retaliated with a number of limited strikes on Iran, but a major escalation was avoided.
\nTensions between Iran and Israel peaked after Hamas launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state on October 7. In response, West Jerusalem started an offensive in Gaza, causing unprecedented destruction in the Palestinian enclave. Hostilities between Israel and Hamas have so far claimed the lives of more than 37,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tehran Iran will throw all of its military power behind Hezbollah if Israel launches a full-scale attack on the Lebanon-based Islamist movement, a senior official in Tehran has warned. He added, however, that his country does not want an all-out war in the Middle East. Tensions between the Jewish state and the Shia group, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-416081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n