Tariq Al-Homayed
Saudi journalist and writer, and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper
TT

Iran in Ten Days

Since the first day of Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation against Israel, Iran has been issuing consecutive statements, as if they were tweets on X (formerly Twitter), in an unprecedented way in all past Gaza wars. I will point to some of them, up to the last statement at the moment of writing this article.

On the first day of the Al-Aqsa Flood, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said: “We kiss the hands of the Palestinians who planned the attack,” stressing that “those who link Iran to the (Hamas) attack on Israel are mistaken.” Then he added: “The Zionist regime suffered an irreparable military and intelligence defeat.”

In another statement, the Iranian President said: “Tehran supports Palestine, but the resistance groups make their own decisions.”

Then came the successive remarks of the Iranian foreign ministry and minister, while Hamas declared that its chief, Ismail Haniyeh, and Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian in Qatar “confirmed continued cooperation to achieve the goals of the resistance and the Palestinian people.”

During that meeting, it was announced that the Iranian minister praised the attack and described it as a “historic victory... that marks a serious setback for the occupation and its project in Palestine and the region.” Abdollahian then stated from Beirut, after meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, that Israel was committing “war crimes.”

He added that Iran asked Egypt, the United Nations, and relief organizations to allow his country to send humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Moreover, the minister said that the continuation of crimes against the Palestinians would be met with a response from “the rest of the axes.”

Iranian media later quoted Abdollahian as saying: “We informed the Zionist entity, through its supporters, that if its crimes in Gaza do not stop, tomorrow will be too late... The region... will not remain idle.” He added: “If the scope of the war expands, America will suffer heavy losses as well.”

However, Iran’s mission to the United Nations contradicted its minister and explained to Reuters that if Israel does not attack Iran, its interests or its citizens, then Iranian armed forces would not engage militarily in the conflict.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman then said that Hamas may be ready to release dozens of its prisoners if Israel stops its raids. Fars News Agency quoted Abdollahian as saying: “If the Zionist attacks do not stop, then all parties in the region should pull the trigger.”

Well, I can continue citing statements, but I will end with the last remark until the writing of this article.

The Revolutionary Guard warned Israel of “another shock on the way, if the attacks on Gaza do not stop.” Was the first shock the Al-Aqsa Flood? Does this mean that Iran adopted the operation?

What is certain is that all of the above statements are evidence of Iranian confusion and concern, not for Gaza and its people, but rather for fear of the collapse of its militias in the region, which it falsely calls the resistance, whether Hamas and the factions, or Hezbollah, and the rest of the militias in Syria that have been receiving Israeli strikes for a long time without responding.

Tehran did not fire a single bullet in defense of the Palestinian cause. Rather, it is prepared to burn and destroy the region in exchange for not losing its militias. Therefore, Iran has issued many statements in the last ten days, at all levels, to try to protect its proxies, and sell illusions to its addicts in the region.

It is enough to listen to the upcoming Iranian statements to see this.