Iranian international minister says it won’t escalate battle and mocks Israeli weapons as ‘toys that our kids play with’

Iran’s international minister on Friday refused to acknowledge that Israel was behind the recent attack on his country and described the weapons that have been used as extra like youngsters’s toys.

“What occurred final evening was not a strike,” the international minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, mentioned in an interview with NBC Information’ Tom Llamas. “They have been extra like toys that our kids play with – not drones.”

Amirabdollahian, who spoke to NBC Information in New York the place he was attending a U.N. Safety Council session, mentioned Iran was not planning to reply until Israel launches a big assault.

“So long as there is no such thing as a new adventurism by Israel in opposition to our pursuits, then we’re not going to have any new reactions,” he mentioned.

However the international minister warned that if Israel did assault Iran, the response can be swift and extreme.

“If Israel takes a decisive motion in opposition to my nation and that is confirmed to us,” he mentioned, “our response might be speedy and to the utmost and can trigger them to remorse it.”

The latest cycle of violence between Israel and Iran started on April 1 when Israel bombed an Iranian consular building within the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing two generals and 5 officers within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran responded 12 days later, launching an unprecedented, direct military attack on Israel involving greater than 300 missiles and drones. The assault triggered no vital injury, nevertheless. Practically the entire missiles and drones have been intercepted by Israeli, U.S. and different allied forces.

Amirabdollahian mentioned the assault was supposed to be “a warning.” “We might have hit Haifa and Tel Aviv,” he mentioned. “We might have additionally focused all of the financial ports of Israel.”

“However our purple traces was civilians,” he added. “We solely had a army function.”

Though Israel has been locked in a shadow war with Israel for many years, with Iran arming and coaching proxy forces hostile to Israel in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, the Iranian aerial barrage marked the primary time Tehran had staged an overt army assault on Israel.

Within the days that adopted, the Biden administration urged Israel to train restraint and never conduct a retaliatory assault that would set off a full-blown conflict between the 2 longtime adversaries.

Israel, although, retaliated on Thursday evening, hanging a army airfield close to town of Isfahan in central Iran. Nuclear services within the space weren’t broken, in response to Iranian state media, and there have been no stories of casualties. 

The assault was downplayed by Iranian state media and met with principally silence from Israeli officers. The restricted scope of the strike and the shortage of public statements afterward seems to point that each side want to ease tensions, consultants mentioned.

U.S. officers known as for calm. “We don’t need to see this battle escalate,” White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned Friday.

The Biden administration has accused Iran of being “complicit” in Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel, citing Tehran’s years-long effort to arm and prepare Hamas militants within the Gaza strip.

Iran touts its help for Hamas however the authorities has mentioned it didn’t order or coordinate the Oct. 7 assault on Israel, which killed some 1,200 folks.

In his interview, Amirabdollahian mentioned Iran had no prior data of Hamas’ assault. He additionally mentioned Hamas was not a terrorist group however a liberation motion against Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

He known as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu “unhinged” and blamed the Israeli authorities for the stalled hostage negotiations. He accused Israel of creating extreme calls for to compensate for its failure to fulfill its targets within the conflict in Gaza.

“It has not been in a position to destroy Hamas or to arrest the leaders inside Gaza, has not been in a position to disarm Hamas, has not been in a position to destroy the weapons and gear,” Amirabdollahian mentioned.

“Due to this fact it needed to resort to killing girls and kids,” he added, “and now on the negotiating desk, they’re making an attempt to get what they may not get on the bottom.”

Nonetheless, the international minister mentioned he hopes {that a} deal might be reached quickly for the discharge of the hostages as a part of a broad settlement. Hamas is “able to go forward with the discharge of the prisoners throughout the format of a humanitarian political package deal encompassing the whole lot.”

“I feel now is an effective time,” he mentioned. “There’s a good probability for this.”