Iranian international minister says it is not going to escalate battle and mocks Israeli weapons as ‘toys that our children 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 had been used as extra like youngsters’s toys.

“What happened last night was not a strike,” the international minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, stated in an interview with NBC Information’ Tom Llamas. “They were more like toys that our children play with – not drones.”

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

“As long as there is no new adventurism by Israel against our interests, then we are not going to have any new reactions,” he stated.

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

“If Israel takes a decisive action against my country and this is proven to us,” he stated, “our response will be immediate and to the maximum and will cause them to regret 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 precipitated no important harm, nonetheless. Almost the entire missiles and drones had been intercepted by Israeli, U.S. and different allied forces.

Amirabdollahian stated the assault was meant to be “a warning.” “We could have hit Haifa and Tel Aviv,” he stated. “We could have also targeted all the economic ports of Israel.”

“But our red lines was civilians,” he added. “We only had a military purpose.”

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 navy assault on Israel.

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

Israel, although, retaliated on Thursday night time, placing a navy airfield close to the town of Isfahan in central Iran. Nuclear services within the space weren’t broken, in keeping with Iranian state media, and there have been no experiences of casualties. 

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

U.S. officers known as for calm. “We do not want to see this conflict escalate,” White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated 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 practice Hamas militants within the Gaza strip.

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

In his interview, Amirabdollahian stated Iran had no prior data of Hamas’ assault. He additionally stated 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 satisfy its goals within the battle in Gaza.

“It has not been able to destroy Hamas or to arrest the leaders inside Gaza, has not been able to disarm Hamas, has not been able to destroy the weapons and equipment,” Amirabdollahian stated.

“Therefore it had to resort to killing women and children,” he added, “and now at the negotiating table, they are trying to get what they could not get on the ground.”

Nonetheless, the international minister stated he hopes {that a} deal will probably be reached quickly for the discharge of the hostages as a part of a broad settlement. Hamas is “ready to go ahead with the release of the prisoners within the format of a humanitarian political package encompassing everything.”

“I think now is a good time,” he stated. “There is a good chance for this.”