President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian reaffirmed Iran’s anti-Israel stance on Monday, saying so-called resistance movements across the region will not allow Israel’s “criminal policies” toward the Palestinians to continue.
“The Islamic Republic has always supported the resistance of the people of the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian said in a message to Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah terror group.
The comments signaled no change in the regional policies of the incoming government under the relatively moderate Pezeshkian, who defeated his hardline rival in last week’s runoff election.
“I am certain that the resistance movements in the region will not allow this regime to continue its warmongering and criminal policies against the oppressed people of Palestine and other nations of the region,” Iranian media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.
Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the Palestinian Sunni Muslim Hamas are part of a group of Iranian-backed factions in the region known as the Axis of Resistance.
Israel did not immediately comment on Pezeshkian’s remarks.
Since war broke out in Gaza on October 7 — when Hamas launched their devastating onslaught on southern Israel in which thousands of terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages — Iran-backed terror groups and militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have launched drones and rockets at Israel, claiming to be acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Most notably, since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces in Lebanon have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, while the Houthi rebels have attacked commercial vessels sailing through the Red Sea and launched missiles and drones at Israel.
In an unprecedented escalation, on the night of April 13-14, Iran launched its first-ever direct missile and drone attack on Israel in response to an alleged Israeli strike in Damascus that killed a top IRGC commander. Meanwhile, Tehran has been working to smuggle weapons into the West Bank in support of Palestinian terror groups operating there.