Iranian foreign minister and Hezbollah leader talk ‘Israeli aggression’
Amir-Abdollahian threatened to open other fronts in war against Israel
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah terror organization, on Friday morning.
Hezbollah stated that Amir-Abdollahian and Nasrallah met in Lebanon's capital Beirut to discuss “the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the brutal crimes committed against its people.”
Upon arriving in Beirut on Thursday evening, Amir-Abdollahian told the media that in light of what he called Israel’s 'war crimes' and the siege of the Gaza Strip, “the opening of other fronts against Israel is a real possibility.”
The indirect threat is a thinly veiled reference to the Hezbollah terror organization which has been sponsored by the Iranian regime for years.
Israel has concentrated large forces along the border with Lebanon in an effort to deter Hezbollah from joining the war. The U.S. has already transferred a carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to bolster the deterrence.
Amir-Abdollahian was greeted by representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, along with Lebanese officials.
“We came to Beirut airport to welcome the Iranian Foreign Minister, to express thanks for Iran’s solidarity with Palestine,” the representative of Hamas in Lebanon told Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet Al-Mayadeen.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib and Amir-Abdollahian on Friday gave a press briefing and confirmed their common stance against Israel.
Amir-Abdollahian called on “Islamic governments to declare their support for stopping the siege on Gaza and stopping the aggression against it.”
Bouhabib then affirmed his country’s solidarity “with our Palestinian brothers,” while condemning “the criminal acts against them.”
Amir-Abdollahian is currently visiting the region to discuss the war between Hamas and Israel, which began with a large-scale terror attack by Hamas against Israel on Saturday morning.
The Iranian foreign minister's visit was supposed to begin in Syria, however, the airport runways in Damascus and Aleppo on Thursday afternoon were destroyed in airstrikes attributed to Israel, according to Syrian media reports.
Amir-Abdollahian was reportedly in-flight on his way to Syria at the time of the airstrikes and the pilot was instructed to turn around mid-air and land in Iraq to begin the visit there.
