A file photo of Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Iran’s foreign minister on April 19 said Tehran was investigating an overnight attack on Iran, adding that so far a link to Israel had not been proven as he downplayed the strike.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told NBC News the drones took off from inside Iran and flew for a few hundred meters before being downed.

Also read: Iran’s president makes no mention of explosions

“They’re … more like toys that our children play with, not drones,” Mr. Amirabdollahian said. “It has not been proved to us that there is a connection between these and Israel,” he said, adding that Iran was investigating the matter but that media reports were not accurate, according to Tehran’s information.

Iranian media and officials described a small number of explosions, which they said resulted from air defences hitting three drones over Isfahan in central Iran in the early hours of April 19. They referred to the incident as an attack by “infiltrators”, rather than by Israel, obviating the need for retaliation.

Mr. Amirabdollahian warned that if Israel retaliated and acted against the interests of Iran, Tehran’s next response would be immediate and at the maximum level. “But if not, then we are done. We are concluded,” he said.

The attack appeared to target an Iranian Air Force base near the city of Isfahan, deep inside the country, but without striking any strategic sites or causing major damage.

Israel has said nothing about the incident. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States had not been involved in any offensive operations, while the White House said it had no comment.

Escalation of conflict

Israel had said it would retaliate after a strike on April 13, the first-ever direct attack on Israel by Iran, which caused no deaths after Israel and its allies shot down hundreds of missiles and drones.

Tehran launched those attacks in response to an Israeli airstrike on April 1 that destroyed a building in Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus and killed several Iranian officers including a top general.

Allies including the U.S. had pressed all week to ensure any further retaliation would be calibrated not to provoke more escalation, and Western countries tightened sanctions on Iran to mollify Israel.

There was no word from Israel on April 19 as to whether further action might be planned.

Apart from direct strikes on Iranian territory, it has other ways of attacking, including cyber-attacks and strikes on Iranian proxies elsewhere.

Tesnions rise in Middle East

Violence between Israel and Iranian proxies across the Middle East has intensified throughout six months of bloodshed in Gaza, raising fears the longstanding foes’ shadow war could spiral into a direct conflict.

Israel’s assault on Gaza began after Hamas Islamists attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s military offensive has killed 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Gazan health ministry.

Israeli air strikes pound Gaza

As night fell on April 19, Israeli planes and tanks pounded several areas across the Gaza Strip, with air strikes hitting areas of Rafah where over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering, according to residents, Hamas media and officials at the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

One strike hit two apartments in a residential building in the city, killing nine people, including four children, and wounding several others, health officials said.

Air strikes also destroyed at least five houses in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, residents and Hamas media said.

“They (Israeli security) phoned some residents and ordered them to evacuate their houses before planes bombed some buildings nearby,” Abu Omar, a resident of Al-Nuseirat, told Reuters via a chat app “Soon as we ran away explosions shook the ground,” he added.

Israel’s government did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, speaks during a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 13, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran’s Foreign Minister on Saturday called on Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, warning that the war might expand to other parts of the Middle East if Hezbollah joins the battle, and that would make Israel suffer “a huge earthquake.”

Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters in Beirut that Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has taken all the scenarios of a war into consideration and Israel should stop its attacks on Gaza as soon as possible.

Israel considers Hezbollah its most serious immediate threat, estimating it has some 1,50,000 rockets and missiles, including precision-guided missiles that can hit anywhere in Israel. The group, which has thousands of battle-hardened fighters who participated in Syria’s 12-year conflict, also has different types of military drones.

Follow live updates from the Israel-Hamas war on October 14, 2023

Hezbollah fighters have been on full alert along Lebanon’s borders with Israel following last Saturday’s attack by the militant Palestinian group Hamas that left hundreds of Israeli civilians and soldiers dead.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said an Israeli drone strike along the border with Lebanon killed a “cell” that was trying to infiltrate into Israel. On Friday, Hezbollah said its fighters fired several rockets at four Israel positions along the border.

Amirabdollahian said he met Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who briefed him on the group’s conditions in Lebanon.

“I know about the scenarios that Hezbollah has put in place,” Amirabdollahian said. “Any step the resistance (Hezbollah) will take will cause a huge earthquake in the Zionist entity.”

Amirabdollahian added: “I want to warn the war criminals and those who support this entity before it’s too late to stop the crimes against civilians in Gaza, because it might be too late in few hours.”

With an eye toward Hezbollah, U.S. President Joe Biden has warned other players in the Middle East not to join the conflict and has sent American warships to the region and vowed full support for Israel.

The Iranian foreign minister said he will be contacting U.N. officials in the Middle East because “there is still an opportunity to work on an initiative (to end the war) but it might be too late tomorrow.”

The possibility of a new front in Lebanon brings back bitter memories of a vicious monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006 that ended in a stalemate and a tense detente between the two sides.