By Don Durfee and Parisa Hafezi
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Israel wants to drag the Middle East into a full-blown war by provoking Iran into joining the nearly year-old conflict between Israel and Tehran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran’s president said on Monday, warning of “irreversible” consequences.
Speaking to reporters after arriving in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Masoud Pezeshkian said: “We do not wish to be the cause of instability in the Middle East, as the consequences would be irreversible.”
“We want to live in peace, we don’t want war,” he added. “It is Israel that wants to create this total conflict.”
Pezeshkian, a relative moderate who was elected in July promising a pragmatic foreign policy, accused the international community of silence in the face of what he called “Israel’s genocide” in Gaza.
Pezeshkian’s call to resolve the Middle East conflict through dialogue came after Israel unleashed a massive wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah on Monday, making it the deadliest day in Lebanon in nearly a year of conflict between Israel and the Tehran-backed group.
“We will defend any group that defends its rights and itself,” Pezeshkian said, when asked if Iran would enter the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. He did not elaborate.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from towns and cities on both sides of the border because of near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah. Israel has said it prefers a diplomatic solution that would see Hezbollah move even further back from the border.
But Hezbollah, which also says it wants to avoid all-out conflict, says only an end to the war in Gaza will end the fighting. Efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza have stalled after months of halting negotiations brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
Iran’s regional policy is set by the elite Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s top authority.
Pezeshkian has repeatedly affirmed Iran’s anti-Israel stance and its support for resistance movements across the region since taking office last month.
Asked whether Iran would retaliate for the killing of Palestinian militant group Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil in late July, Pezeshkian said: “We will respond at the appropriate time and place, in the appropriate way.”
Haniyeh’s killing, which both Tehran and Hamas have blamed on Israel, has raised fears of a direct conflict between Tehran and its arch-enemy Israel in a region rocked by Israel’s war in Gaza and a worsening conflict in Lebanon.
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards and Khamenei have vowed “severe” revenge for Haniyeh’s killing, which occurred while he was visiting Tehran. Tehran has so far refrained from direct retaliation against Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Three senior Iranian officials told Reuters in August that Tehran has been engaged in intensive dialogue with Western countries and the United States to gauge retaliation against Israel for Haniyeh’s killing.
Pezeshkian said that “we were told that within a week there would be a ceasefire agreement” between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas, “but that week never came and instead Israel has continued to expand its attacks.”