Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani has denounced the assassination of a top official of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, warning the United States to brace itself for its dire consequences.
Ashtiani made the remarks on the sidelines of a cabinet session in the capital Tehran on Wednesday.
“[The United States of] America has ventured into our region and disrupted its balance. Its repercussions will have an adverse effect and beset Americans themselves,” he said.
The defense minister also deplored the United States’ strategic mistakes in the West Asia region, stating that such missteps and flawed measures would eventually backfire on Washington.
He underscored that the vicious moves against resistance forces will only strengthen regional solidarity against the US policies in the region.
Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday in a “treacherous Zionist strike” on Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, Hamas announced on its official channel.
Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Rishq called it a “cowardly assassination.”
Arouri was a senior official in Hamas’s politburo and was known to be deeply involved in its military affairs. He had previously headed the group’s presence in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli regime launched its devastating war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the territory’s Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.
The Israeli military has also been carrying out attacks against the Lebanese territory since then, prompting retaliatory strikes from Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
The movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory operations as long as the regime continues its onslaught on Gaza.
The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has killed at least 22,185 people, most of them women and children. More than 57,000 individuals have also been wounded.
