Iran: We do not seek escalation but our response to Haniyeh's assassination will be crushing

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday that Tehran does not seek to escalate tensions in the region, but believes that punishing Israel is necessary to prevent further instability, following the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week.

"Iran seeks to establish stability in the region, but this will not be achieved unless the aggressor is punished and Israel is deterred from undertaking adventures," Kanaani said, adding that Tehran's move is inevitable.

We will punish the aggressor with a crushing response

Kanaani called on the United States to stop supporting Israel, saying that the international community has not done its duty to protect the stability of the region and must support "punishing the aggressor."

For his part, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, confirmed on Monday the Revolutionary Guards' threat that Israel "will be punished at the appropriate time." Salami said that Israel will receive a "crushing response" to the assassination of Haniyeh early Wednesday during his visit to the capital, Tehran.

In a speech during a ceremony honoring journalists at the Revolution University, Salami said that Israel "assassinated a mujahid who was demanding the rights of a people." He added that Israel "miscalculated by assassinating Haniyeh, and will receive a crushing response."

Today, the situation has changed

He continued: "We are facing different events and they are increasing. One day, the forces that decided to create events were there, but today the situation has changed."

The Iranian statements today come after the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, in an operation also attributed to Israel. Iran and its allies have vowed to respond to this assassination, in addition to Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Fouad Shukr in a strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut last week.

On Monday, the Group of Seven called for restraint and de-escalation in the Middle East, saying that recent events "threaten to fuel the flames of a wider conflict in the region."

The group called in a statement: “We once again call on all parties to stop engaging in the current cycle of destructive retaliatory violence, reduce tensions and move constructively towards de-escalation.”