Three senior Iranian officials said only a ceasefire agreement in Gaza resulting from talks this week would prevent Iran from directly retaliating against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil.
Iran has vowed a strong response to Haniyeh’s killing, which took place during a visit to Tehran late last month and for which it blamed Israel. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement. The US Navy has deployed warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli security.
One of the sources, a senior Iranian security official, said that if the Gaza talks fail or it believes Israel is putting off the negotiations, Iran, together with allies such as Hezbollah, would launch a direct attack. The sources did not say how much time Iran would give the talks to proceed before responding.
The killing of Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East, so Iran has been in intense talks with Western countries and the United States in recent days on ways to retaliate, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
In comments published on Tuesday, the US ambassador to Turkey confirmed that Washington is asking allies to help persuade Iran to ease tensions. Three regional government sources described talks with Tehran to defuse tensions ahead of Gaza ceasefire talks, which are due to begin on Thursday in either Egypt or Qatar.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement on Friday, “We hope that our response will be timely and executed in a way that does not harm a possible ceasefire.” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that calls for restraint were “contrary to the principles of international law.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry and its Revolutionary Guards Corps did not immediately respond to questions for this story. Israel’s prime minister’s office and the US State Department also did not respond to questions.
“Anything can happen this week by Iran and its allies… that is a matter of the United States’ assessment as well as Israel’s,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday.
“If something happens this week, the timing of it could certainly impact the negotiations we want to have on Thursday,” he said. Over the weekend, Hamas expressed doubts about whether the talks would go ahead. Israel and Hamas have held several rounds of talks in recent months but have not been able to agree on a final ceasefire.
In Israel, many observers believe a response is inevitable following Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s statement that Iran would “severely punish” Israel for the attack in Tehran.
Iran’s regional policy is set by the elite Revolutionary Guard, the country’s top authority, which is answerable only to Khamenei. Iran’s relatively moderate new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has repeatedly reaffirmed Iran’s anti-Israel stance and his support for resistance movements across the region since taking office last month.
Meir Litva, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, said he believed Iran would prioritize its own needs before helping its ally Hamas, but that Iran also wanted to avoid a full-blown war.
“The Iranians have never subordinated their strategy and policies to the needs of their supporters or dependents,” Litva said. “An attack is probable and almost inevitable, but I don’t know its scale and timing.”
Iran-based analyst Saeed Laylaz said the Islamic Republic’s leaders are now keen to work toward a ceasefire in Gaza “to gain incentives, avoid a full-blown war and strengthen their position in the region.”
Laylaz said Iran was not previously involved in the Gaza peace process but was now prepared to play “an important role”.
Two sources said Iran was considering sending a representative to the ceasefire talks, which would be the first since the war in Gaza began.
The representatives will not attend the meetings directly, but will be involved in discussions behind the scenes “to maintain a line of diplomatic communication” with the United States during the talks. Officials in Washington, Qatar and Egypt did not immediately respond to questions about whether Iran would play an indirect role in the talks.
Two senior sources close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah said Tehran would give the talks a chance but would not abandon its intention to retaliate.
One source said a ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a small “symbolic” response.
Israel launched an assault on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas fighters entered southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry.
April Missiles
Iran has not publicly indicated what the ultimate goal of its response to Haniyeh’s killing will be.
On April 13, two weeks after two Iranian generals were killed in an attack on Tehran’s embassy in Syria, Iran launched hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles toward Israel, damaging two airbases. Nearly all of the weapons were shot down before reaching their targets.
“Iran wants its response to be far more effective than the April 13 attack,” said Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Nadimi said such a response would require “a lot of preparation and coordination,” especially if it involved the network of Iran-allied armed groups opposing Israel and the United States across the Middle East, with Hezbollah being the senior member of the so-called “axis of resistance” that has harassed Israel since Oct. 7 along with Iraqi militias and Yemen’s Houthis.
Two Iranian sources said Iran would support Hezbollah and other allies if they responded to the killing of Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an attack in Beirut a day before Haniyeh’s killing in Tehran.
The sources did not clarify what form such support might take.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)