Tehran [Iran], November 16: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is said to have made it clear that Iran will not participate directly in the Hamas-Israel conflict unless attacked.
Reuters on November 15 quoted three senior officials of Iran and Hamas as revealing that Iran 's supreme leader sent a clear message to the head of Hamas when they met in Tehran in early November: "You gave us no warning about the attack on Israel on October 7, [so] we will not go to war for you."
Leader Ali Khamenei told Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that Iran would continue to support the group politically and spiritually, but would not intervene directly.
A Hamas official told Reuters that the supreme leader had pressed Haniyeh to silence voices within Hamas that publicly called on Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah to join the fight against Israel with full force.
Hamas posted a statement on Telegram denying the authenticity of the Reuters article, which it described as "baseless". However, the statement did not specify what was inaccurate and Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
Iran's Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, have repeatedly said publicly that they do not want the Israel-Hamas war to spread throughout the region.
Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping hundreds of others to the Gaza Strip. There was information that the operation was kept secret and that even Iran, the country considered the leader in the Axis of Resistance against Israel and the United States in the Middle East, did not know about it in advance. The same goes for the Hezbollah force in Lebanon.
Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif has called on allies in the Axis of Resistance in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Syria to join the conflict. However, an official with direct knowledge of Iran's calculations said that the country would not intervene directly unless attacked by Israel or the US. Instead, Iran's authorities plan to continue using armed groups within the network to launch rocket and drone attacks against Israeli and American targets across the Middle East. Tehran has not commented on this information.
Source: ThanhNien Newspaper
