Iran will not be bystander unless Israel stops aggression on Gaza: Amir-Abdollahian

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has warned that the Islamic Republic will not be a bystander if the Israeli occupying regime presses ahead with its savagery against the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Amir-Abdollahian made the warning in an interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network's Arabic service on Sunday, on the 9^th day of the barbaric Israeli shelling of the coastal area that has so far killed over 2,450 people and left thousands of others injured.

The Israeli occupation army are also preparing to launch a large-scale ground offensive in Gaza after forcing its millions-strong population to relocate south.

“If the Zionist entity decides to enter Gaza, the resistance leaders will turn it into a cemetery for its soldiers,” Amir-Abdollahian said, adding that the continuation of Israeli aggression against Gaza would expand the war fronts across the whole region.

Expressing optimism about political efforts aimed at ending the conflict, the top Iranian diplomat, however, warned that Tehran would not sit idly by if the Israeli regime failed to stop its brutal onslaught on Gazans.

“We hope that political efforts will prevent the war from expanding, otherwise no one knows what will happen in the next hour; Iran cannot remain as a spectator to this situation,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

The Iranian foreign minister also underlined that the resistance front had expressed its readiness for all possible scenarios.

"The United States has come forward to preserve the statue and puppet of Israel," Amir-Abdollahian told Al Jazeera network. “If the scope of the war expands, heavy losses will befall the US as well.”

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Iran warns Israel through UN against ground offensive in Gaza

Meanwhile, the American news website Axios reported that Iran sent a message to Israel through the United Nations on Saturday stressing that it does not want further escalation in Gaza, but that it will have to intervene if the Israeli aggression on the coastal area continued.

Citing two diplomatic sources with knowledge of the situation, Axios said Amir-Abdollahian had met with UN envoy to the Middle East Tor Wennesland in the Lebanese capital of Beirut and conveyed the message to the Israeli regime.

“Iran has its red lines,” Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying. “If the Israeli military operation continues — and especially if Israel follows through on its promise of a ground offensive in Gaza — Iran will have to respond.”

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm last Saturday, penetrating deep into the territories occupied by the Israeli regime, by carrying out large-scale air, land, and sea strikes.

The group said the operation was a reaction to the recurring desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied al-Quds as well as intensified Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Israel responded with intensive air strikes on civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 2,450 Palestinians in Gaza and wounding some 10,000 others, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The regime has also intensified the siege of Gaza, leaving the city, home to more than 2.3 million Palestinians, without water, electricity, fuel and internet.

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