Iran's new President Massoud Pezeshkian warned today that Israel would make "a grave mistake" if it attacked Lebanon, following an attack on the Golan Heights, an area under Israeli occupation, attributed by Tel Aviv to the Lebanese Hezbollah.
"The Zionist regime [Israel] would be making a grave mistake with grave consequences if it attacked Lebanon," Pezeshkian said during a conversation with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, according to the Iranian presidency's website.
On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani warned Israel, Iran's sworn enemy, of the "consequences" of a retaliatory attack in Lebanon, after a rocket fired at a football pitch in the city of Majdal Shams killed 12 children and teenagers from a Druze community in the Golan Heights.
Israel blamed the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, which denied being behind the deadly attack in the Syrian Golan Heights, partially occupied and annexed by Israel.
"Any action (...) by the Zionist regime could lead to an aggravation," said Kanani, who accused Israel of blaming Hezbollah to divert public and world attention from its actions in the Gaza Strip, the scene of a war and a humanitarian disaster since October 2023.
During his conversation with Macron today, the Iranian President also criticized Israel for violating "all international frameworks and laws" by committing "crimes" against the Palestinians.
Iran, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which is at war with Israel in Gaza, does not recognise the Israeli state and has made support for the Palestinian cause a central element of its foreign policy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The Golan Heights is a strategic region at the crossroads of three countries (Syria, Lebanon and Israel), largely conquered by Israel in 1967.
Israel annexed two-thirds of the territory in 1981, but the international community has never recognised this annexation.
