Israel made a "strategic mistake" that will "cost it dearly" by killing the political leader of "Hamas" Ismail Hania in Tehran last week, said Acting Foreign Minister of Iran Ali Bagheri in an interview with France Press, BTA reported.
"The act committed by the Zionists in Tehran is a strategic mistake and will cost them dearly," Ali Bagheri said in Jeddah after an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
In addition, he accused Israel of wanting to "spread the war" in the region, while declaring that the Jewish state has "neither the capacity nor the power" to fight Iran. Iranian representatives continue to threaten retaliation against Israel, which has not yet commented on the death of Ismail Haniya on July 31, AFP recalls.
At yesterday's meeting of the foreign ministers of the 57 OIC member countries, a declaration was adopted in which Israel was declared "fully responsible" about the "disgusting" killing of the leader of "Hamas", who lived in Qatar and played a leading role in the negotiations for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, recalls AFP. The war in the Palestinian enclave was triggered by the unprecedented attack carried out on October 7 by fighters of "Hamas" in southern Israel, killing 1,198 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
According to the Israeli army, 111 of the 251 abducted people are still being held in Gaza, and 39 of them are dead. In response, Israel launched an offensive that has so far killed 39,677 people, according to the Hamas-led Gaza's health ministry, which did not give details on the number of civilians and fighters killed.
Pro-Iranian "Hezbollah", the Lebanese ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement, also vowed to avenge the killing of Ismail Haniyeh and his military commander Fuad Shukr, killed on July 30 by an Israeli strike in Beirut.