Exclusive: Only Gaza ceasefire will delay retaliation, say Iranian officials
Item
1 of 5 People walk past a banner with a picture of late Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh in a street in Tehran, Iran, August 12, 2024. Majid
Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
[1/5]People
walk past a banner with a picture of late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
in a street in Tehran, Iran, August 12, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA
(West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights DUBAI/BEIRUT, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Only a ceasefire deal in Gaza stemming from hoped-for
talks this week would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh on its soil, three senior Iranian officials said.
Iran has vowed a
severe response
to Haniyeh's killing, which took place as he visited Tehran late last
month and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or
denied its involvement. The U.S. Navy has deployed
warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli defenses.
One
of the sources, a senior Iranian security official, said Iran, along
with allies such as Hezbollah, would launch a direct attack if the Gaza
talks fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations. The
sources did not say how long Iran would allow for talks to progress
before responding.
With an increased
risk of a broader Middle East war after the killings of Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander
Fuad Shukr,
Iran has been involved in intense dialogue with Western countries and
the United States in recent days on ways to calibrate retaliation, said
the sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity due to the
sensitivity of the matter.
In comments published on Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey
confirmed Washington was asking allies to help convince Iran to
de-escalate tensions.
Three regional government sources described conversations with Tehran
to avoid escalation ahead of the Gaza ceasefire talks, due to begin on
Thursday in either Egypt or Qatar.
"We
hope our response will be timed and executed in a way that does not
harm a potential ceasefire," Iran's mission to the U.N. said on Friday
in a statement. Iran's foreign ministry
on Tuesday said calls to exercise restraint "contradict principles of international law."
Iran's
foreign ministry and its Revolutionary Guards Corps did not immediately
respond to questions for this story. The Israeli Prime Minister's
Office and the U.S. State Department did not respond to questions.
"Something
could happen as soon as this week by Iran and its proxies... That is a
U.S. assessment as well as an Israel assessment," White House
spokesperson John Kirby
told reporters on Monday.
"If
something does happen this week, the timing of it could certainly well
have an impact on these talks we want to do on Thursday," he added.
At the weekend,
Hamas cast doubt on whether talks would go ahead. Israel and Hamas have held several
rounds of talks in recent months without agreeing a final ceasefire.
In Israel, many observers believe a response is imminent after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would
"harshly punish" Israel for the strike in Tehran.
“We
are closely following what happens in Beirut and Tehran, and are
working to thwart any (possible) threat, while also preparing a variety
of offensive options," Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during
a visit to an intelligence base in Northern Israel.
"We
are determined to fulfill our mission - we must ensure the safe return
of (Israel’s northern) residents to their homes, once we ensure that
Hezbollah withdraws north of the Litani River."
Iran's
regional policy is set by the elite Revolutionary Guards, who answer
only to Khamenei, the country's top authority. Iran's relatively
moderate new president Masoud Pezeshkian has repeatedly reaffirmed
Iran's anti-Israel stance and its support for resistance movements
across the region since taking office last month.
Meir
Litvak, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University's Alliance Center
for Iranian Studies, said he thought Iran would put its needs before
helping its ally Hamas but that Iran also wanted to avoid a full-scale
war.
"The
Iranians never subordinated their strategy and policies to the needs of
their proxies or protégées,” Litvak said. “An attack is likely and
almost inevitable but I don't know the scale and the timing.”
Iran-based
analyst Saeed Laylaz said the Islamic Republic's leaders were now keen
to work towards a ceasefire in Gaza, "to obtain incentives, avoid an
all-out war and strengthen its position in the region."
Laylaz said Iran had not previously been involved in the Gaza peace process but was now ready to play "a key role."
Iran,
two of the sources said, was considering sending a representative to
the ceasefire talks. However, they said the representative would not
directly attend the meetings but would engage in behind-the-scenes
discussions "to maintain a line of diplomatic communication" with the
United States while negotiations proceed.
Iran's
mission to the United Nations in New York told Reuters that Tehran
would not have a representative present on the sidelines of the
ceasefire talks. Officials in Washington, Qatar and Egypt did not
immediately respond to questions about whether Iran would play an
indirect role in talks.
Two
senior sources close to Lebanon's Hezbollah said Tehran would give the
negotiations a chance but would not give up its intentions to retaliate.
A ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a smaller "symbolic" response, one of the sources said.
Israel launched its assault on
Gaza
after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing
1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing more than 250 hostages,
according to Israeli tallies.
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 would be the target of an eventual response to the Haniyeh assassination.
On
April 13, two weeks after two Iranian generals were killed in a strike
on Tehran's embassy in Syria, Iran unleashed a barrage of hundreds of
drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles towards Israel, damaging
two airbases. Almost all of the weapons were shot down before they
reached their targets.
"Iran
wants its response to be much more effective than the April 13 attack,"
said Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow with the Washington Institute for
Near East policy."
Nadimi
said such a response would require "a lot of preparation and
coordination" especially if it involved Iran's network of allied armed
groups opposing Israel and the United States across the Middle East,
with Hezbollah the senior member of the so-called "Axis of Resistance,"
that along with Iraqi militias and Yemen's Houthis have harried Israel
since Oct. 7.
Two
of the Iranian sources said Iran would support Hezbollah and other
allies if they launched their own responses to the killing of Haniyeh
and Hezbollah's top military commander, Fuad Shukr, who died in a strike
in Beirut the day before Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.
The sources did not specify what form such support could take.
Reporting
by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Laila Bassam in Lebanon; Additional
reporting by James Mackenzie, Maayan Lubell, Maytaal Angel and Steven
Scheer in Jerusalem, Phil Stewart, Humeyra Pamuk, Idris Ali and Trevor
Hunnicutt in Washington and Michelle Nichols in New York
Writing by Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Giles Elgood