•Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said today that its ally Hezbollah “cannot stand alone” against Israel, which carried out its deadliest day of air strikes on Lebanon since 2006.
“Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by Western countries, by European countries and the United States,” Pezeshkian said in an interview with CNN translated from Farsi to English.
He called on the international community to “not allow Lebanon to become another Gaza,” in response to a question on whether Iran would use its influence with Hezbollah to urge restraint
Yesterday, over 550 people, including 50 children, were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry.
The Israeli military said it had hit about 1,600 Hezbollah targets yesterday, killing a “large number” of militants, and had carried out more strikes today.
Pezeshkian, who has been in New York for the annual UN General Assembly, denounced the United Nations’ “inaction” against Israel today.
“In my meeting with the Secretary General of the United Nations, I said the UN inaction against the crimes of the occupying regime is senseless and incomprehensible,” he said in a post on social media platform X.
“I expressed my deep concern about the spread of the conflict in the entire Middle East,” he added.
The Israeli strikes came less than a week after coordinated sabotage attacks targeting Hezbollah’s communication devices killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000.
Iranian media blamed Israel for the apparent slide towards full-fledged war.
“The Zionist regime has pressed the all-out war button,” said the ultraconservative Javan newspaper, while its rival Kayhan asked: “Has the big war begun?”
Government daily Iran warned “the region is on the verge of a massive explosion.”
Reformist newspaper Etemad said, “peace in Lebanon is hanging by a thread.”
The Iranian president also accused Israel of warmongering, saying “it is Israel that seeks to create this wider conflict.”
“We know better than anyone that if a larger war erupts in the Middle East, it will benefit no one globally,” Pezeshkian told journalists at a roundtable.
He added that Iran had “never started a war in the last 100 years” and was “not looking to cause insecurity”.
But he insisted that Iran “will never allow a country to force us into something and threaten our security and territorial integrity.”
Tehran-based political commentator Mohammad Reza Manafi meanwhile suggested that despite the tough rhetoric, the Islamic republic was more partial to a strategy of restraint.
“Israel is trying hard to drag Iran’s feet into direct war,” Manafi said, but “Iran intends to continue restraint in the current situation.”
“There is still a long way to Iran’s possible direct involvement in the war… but it will continue supporting Hezbollah,” he added.
