{"id":292908,"date":"2024-08-14T07:50:37","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T07:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=292908"},"modified":"2024-08-16T07:24:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T07:24:01","slug":"call-gaza-ceasefire-and-we-will-not-attack-you-iranian-officials-reportedly-tell-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=292908","title":{"rendered":"Call Gaza ceasefire and we will not attack you, Iranian officials reportedly tell Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Nuki, Jotam Confino \u2013 The Telegraph Aug 13, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Iran will not launch an attack on Israel if there is a ceasefire deal<\/a> in Gaza, officials in Tehran said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It is the first time Iran has linked its threatened retaliation against Israel to the Gaza peace and hostage negotiations.<\/p>\n

Israel has been braced for a twin attack<\/a> from Iran and its proxy Hezbollah<\/a> in Lebanon for two weeks after the assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh<\/a>, the Hamas political leader, in Tehran and a Hezbollah commander in Beirut.<\/p>\n

Iran is said to fear an attack on its nuclear facilities should a regional war<\/a> break out, while Israel is reportedly plotting strikes on the country\u2019s water and oil infrastructure to shatter its economy and bring down its hard-line Islamic regime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For two weeks, the US has sought to avert an escalation by rushing massive military capability into the region while pursuing a peace deal.<\/p>\n

Its strategy hinges on a new round of ceasefire talks scheduled to take place in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, Joe Biden said it was his \u201cexpectation\u201d that Iran would hold off on a retaliatory strike if a ceasefire agreement is reached.<\/p>\n

Three \u201csenior Iranian officials\u201d quoted by Reuters have now linked the country\u2019s planned military response to the Doha talks.<\/p>\n

Iran was even considering sending a representative to the talks as an observer to \u201cmaintain a line of diplomatic communication\u201d with the US while negotiations proceeded, one of the unnamed officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran, along with allies such as Hezbollah, would launch a direct attack [on Israel] if the Gaza talks fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations,\u201d Reuters reported one of the sources as saying. \u201cThe sources did not say how long Iran would allow for talks to progress before responding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran does not directly control Hezbollah but has significant influence over both it and Hamas as the principal funder of both terrorist groups.<\/p>\n

Reuters quoted a source close to Hezbollah who said Iran would give the negotiations in Doha a chance but would not give up entirely on its intention to strike Israel.<\/p>\n

A ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a smaller, \u201csymbolic\u201d response, one of the sources said.<\/p>\n

The US-led diplomatic effort to avert war remains intense, with Antony Blinken<\/a>, the secretary of state, expected to arrive in the region on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer<\/a>, the Prime Minister, and Olaf Sholtz, the German chancellor, spoke to Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran\u2019s president, on Monday, expressing their concern about a regional war if Iran followed through on its threats to attack Israel directly.<\/p>\n

The US, Britain, France, Italy and Germany urged Tehran to stand down in a joint letter.<\/p>\n

However, Iran continued to insist on its right to respond to an attack on its soil.<\/p>\n

Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman for the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs, said: \u201cThe declaration by France, Germany and Britain, which raised no objection to crimes of the Zionist regime, brazenly asks Iran to take no deterrent action against a regime which has violated its sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of issuing such demands, Western nations should \u201conce and for all stand up against the war in Gaza and the warmongering of Israel\u201d, Mr Kanaani added.<\/p>\n

Iran would \u201cnever give in to pressure, to sanctions and to bullying and considers it has the right to respond\u201d.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Army Radio reported that Israel had conveyed messages to its allies warning that it would strike Iran if it launched an attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take the declarations and statements of our enemies seriously. Therefore, we are prepared at peak readiness in offence and defence,\u201d said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, it was reported that Mr Blinken would visit Israel, Egypt and Qatar in a last-ditch attempt to secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n

Hamas had been holding out on attending the talks but on Tuesday the US said that may change.<\/p>\n

\u201cQatar has assured us that they will work to have Hamas represented,\u201d said Vedant Patel, a state department spokesman.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday night, Joe Biden said it was his \u201cexpectation\u201d that Iran would hold off on a retaliatory strike if a ceasefire agreement is reached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":287561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Iran","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=292908"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292911,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292908\/revisions\/292911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/287561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=292908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=292908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=292908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}