Iranian president warns of ‘heavy consequences’ if Israel attacks Lebanon

Israel has threatened to launch a large attack on Lebanon after a rocket killed 12 children and teenagers in the occupied Golan Heights on Saturday

JUL 29, 2024

Any Israeli attack on Lebanon will have severe consequences for Israel, Iranian President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian said in a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on 29 July, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

“The Zionist regime will be making a big mistake if it attacks Lebanon, which will carry heavy consequences for them [the Israelis],” the Iranian president warned.

Israel blamed Hezbollah, the Iranian-allied Lebanese resistance group, for an explosion in Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights on Saturday. The strike hit a soccer field, killing 12 children and teenagers from the Syrian Druze community.

Hezbollah denied any involvement, as the incident is now widely believed to have been the result of an Iron Dome malfunction, based on eyewitness accounts and inspections of the crater’s size.

The affected residents of Majdal Shams, which have refused Israeli citizenship since being occupied in 1967, expelled Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from the funeral of the 12 youths on Monday.

Nevertheless, Israel has continued to frame the Syrian Druze victims as Israelis and vowed to attack Hezbollah and Lebanon “in response.”

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Over the weekend, many Israeli politicians called for the bombing of Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

Some airlines canceled flights to Lebanon on Monday in fears of an Israeli attack.

French President Macron spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, the French presidency said, as Paris seeks to prevent a broader escalation between Israel and Hezbollah.

Macron told Netanyahu that France was fully committed to doing “everything to avoid a new escalation in the region by passing messages to all parties involved in the conflict.”

Pezeshkian will be sworn in before the Iranian Parliament on Tuesday. He is replacing the late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.

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