Iran claims “timing isn’t right” for attack on Israel, as IDF pummels Hezbollah.
By World Israel News Staff
Iran recently rebuffed a request from its proxy group Hezbollah to attack Israel, as fighting intensified between the terror group and the Israeli military.
In recent days, Israel has struck thousands of weapons warehouses and other military assets, killing more than 500 people – most of them believed to be affiliated with Hezbollah.
The Israeli air force has repeatedly bombed Dahiyeh, a Beirut suburb and Hezbollah stronghold, assassinating high-profile Hezbollah figures and humiliating the terror group.
According to an Axios report, a battered Hezbollah recently turned to its patron and asked Iran to directly attack Israel.
Israeli intelligence officials told Axios that Iran had refused the request.
Iranian officials reportedly told their Hezbollah contacts that “the timing isn’t right” for an attack on Israel, because Iranian President Mahmoud Pezeshkian is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly.
Publicly, Pezeshkian pledged that Iran would continue to support Hezbolah in its war against Israel.
“Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by Western countries, by European countries and the United States,” he told CNN.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Pezeshkian claimed that Israel is the source of instability in the Middle East and that Iran is not interested in war.
“We don’t want to fight,” Pezeshkian claimed. “It’s Israel that wants to drag everyone into war and destabilize the region. … They are dragging us to a point where we do not wish to go.”
Israel’s intensification of its military campaign against the Hezbollah terror group, in which Iran has invested untold funds, training, and arms, appears to sparked panic among Iran’s leadership.
However, Tehran likely wishes to avoid directly attacking Israel, because doing so would give the IDF legitimacy to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites.