The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is pushing for strikes on Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities in response to the killing of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Ghaniyya, but Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is offering less radical options, The Telegraph newspaper reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources. assistants of the Iranian president.
“Pezeshkiyan is afraid that any direct attack on Israel will have serious consequences,” said one of the newspaper’s interlocutors. Therefore, according to his aides, the Iranian president would prefer, for example, the option of striking secret Israeli military facilities in other countries. Also, according to one of the aides, the president suggested better arming the Lebanese Hezbollah with more advanced weapons and “let them fight.”
According to the newspaper, the IRGC considers it necessary to strike military facilities on the territory of Israeli cities.
The supreme commander of the IRGC is not Pezeshkiyan, but the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Meanwhile, according to Mehr agency, Ismail Kaani, the commander of the Al-Quds special unit within the IRGC, said in a letter to the new leader of the Hamas politburo, Yahya Sinwar, that the killing of Haniya would lead to “severe revenge against the Zionist regime.”
On Thursday, in a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, Pezeshkian said that Iran has the right to respond to Hania’s murder, but stressed that “the Islamic Republic of Iran considers it its duty to avoid war and make every effort to establish peace and security.”
The situation in the Middle East sharply worsened after last week’s murder of Haniya in Tehran and the senior adviser of the leader of “Hezbollah” Hassan Nasrallah – Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to take revenge for their deaths.
