Hundreds of mourners gathered Monday in a heavily fortified area in northeast Tehran for the funerals of five Revolutionary Guards officers killed in Syria last Saturday, in what Iran called an Israeli strike.
The ceremony took place in the Mahallati area, which is home to several senior IRGC commanders. Posters of the five officers and slain IRGC Quds Force Qassem Soleimani were erected at the funeral. Soleimani was killed in a US strike near Baghdad airport in January 2020.
Last Saturday, Iran said five of its advisers were killed in an Israeli strike that destroyed a house in the Mezzeh area in Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor, said 13 people were killed in the strikes on a building where “Iran-aligned leaders” were meeting.
Later, Iranian news agencies said the strike killed the IRGC's Syria intelligence chief, as well as other Guard members.
Tehran blamed Israel for the attack and pledged to retaliate. Tel Aviv has not commented on the attack.
Addressing a weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said: “The Zionist entity wants to bring the US directly into the war with the resistance parties in the region.”
Responding to a question about Iran’s retaliation to the Israeli raid in Damascus, he said: “The crimes of the Zionist regime against Iran have never gone unanswered.”
“We reserve the right to respond in our own way,” he added.
The spokesperson said Israel is stuck in a quagmire in the Gaza Strip and is therefore seeking to create instability and insecurity in the region to drag other parties to a war. He added that Iran will not be dragged into the conflict.
In recent weeks, Israel was accused of killing Brig. Gen. Reza Mousavi, a senior commander in the IRGC in an airstrike in Syria, and Hamas’ deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri, in an attack in Lebanon's capital Beirut.
The attacks threw into sharp focus the increasing risk that the war on Gaza could spill over into the region.
The conflict in Gaza began on Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters stormed border defenses to attack Israeli bases and towns.
On January 15, the Revolutionary Guards said they attacked alleged Israeli Mossad targets in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
“Iran’s attack on Erbil does not violate the sovereignty of Iraq,” said Kanaani. “The attack targeted threats and enemies. It was not an act against Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.”
Responding to Kanaani’s comments, the spokesperson for Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Peshwa Taher Horami, said on Monday the attack was a crime against civilians and a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of Iraq and Kurdistan, the principles of good neighborliness and international agreements.
