The China Mail - Iran says Israel seeks to 'expand war' amid de-escalation push

Ali Bagheri, Iran's acting foreign minister, told AFP that Israel had committed "a strategic mistake" by killing Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week -- hours after the assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah's military chief.

Although Israel has not admitted to killing Haniyeh, Iran and its allies have vowed to retaliate, setting the region on edge as the Gaza war raged on into its 11th month.

Israel seeks "to expand tension, war and conflict to other countries", but has neither "the capacity nor the strength" to fight Iran, Bagheri said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a military base on Wednesday, said Israel was "prepared both defensively and offensively" and "determined" to defend itself.

Haniyeh's group named a successor on Wednesday -- Yahya Sinwar, who Israel says had a key role in planning Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack that sparked the Gaza war.

Analysts believe Sinwar -- Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip since 2017 -- has been both more reluctant to agree to a ceasefire and closer to Tehran than Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar.

On the ground in Gaza, fighting continued on Thursday with the Israeli military issuing its latest evacuation order and rescuers and medics reporting at least 13 killed in strikes.

- 'Cycle of reprisals' -

The front pages of some of Israel's leading newspapers on Thursday cited "assessments" that Iran may be rethinking its course of action, reportedly in part due to US pressure.

Officials and leaders in the Middle East and beyond have called for calm, with Britain's minister for international development, Anneliese Dodds, telling AFP on a visit to Jordan: "We must see a de-escalation".

France's President Emmanuel Macron spoke Wednesday with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian and later with Israel's Netanyahu, telling both to "avoid a cycle of reprisals", according to the French presidency.

Israel's military chief Herzi Halevi told troops "we are not stopping" targeting the leaders of "our most dangerous enemies", vowing to "find" and "attack" Sinwar too, according to an army statement.

Also on Wednesday, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, meeting in the Saudi city of Jeddah, declared that Israel was "fully responsible" for Haniyeh's "heinous" killing.

Bagheri said OIC members voiced support for Iranian retaliation.

"Western countries, who claim they have asked Iran to restrict its response... are not in the position to advise the Islamic Republic of Iran."

- 'Inevitable' -

The Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip has already drawn in Tehran-aligned militants in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah, which has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli troops throughout the Gaza war, has vowed retaliation for military chief Fuad Shukr's killing.

Israel said the Beirut strike that killed him was in response to deadly rocket fire from Lebanon last month on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

And in Yemen, the Iran-backed Huthis said Thursday their retaliation for a deadly Israeli strike last month on the Red Sea port of Hodeida was "inevitable and will come".

A Lebanese government official told AFP on Thursday that "there are efforts to calm the situation" across the region including with a continued push to secure a Gaza truce after months of stalled negotiations.

"But we must stay alert, even if tensions have relatively subsided over the past two days," said the source, requesting anonymity.

Numerous airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon to security fears.

- Israel PM 'sorry' -

The Hamas attack that triggered the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,699 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Netanyahu, who has resisted making an apology for security failures over Israel's worst-ever attack, said in an interview published Thursday that he was "sorry, deeply, that something like this happened".

"You always look back and you say, 'Could we have done things that would have prevented it?'" Netanyahu told Time magazine.

The Israeli military meanwhile issued a new evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza's main city, telling Palestinians to flee places from where "rockets are launched" at Israel.

The civil defence agency said an Israeli strike targeting a Khan Yunis house killed at least five people.

In the territory's north, AFP journalists reported air strikes and constant shelling overnight in Gaza City, where medics said eight people were killed in two separate incidents.

On the diplomatic front, an Israeli decision to revoke the diplomatic status of Norway's envoys to the Palestinian Authority over "anti-Israel behaviour" drew anger from Oslo.

"Today's decision will have consequences for our relationship with the Netanyahu government," said Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide.

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