The aftermath of a terror attack in Israel on Sunday night
Arab gunmen killed two Israeli policemen Sunday night as four Arab states gathered in Israel to discuss the Iranian threat with the United States.
Iran’s Fars news agency affiliated with IRGC splashed a headline on its website Monday morning saying Hezbollah congratulated the “martyrdom” operation in Israel that killed two police officers.
Fars quoted the Hezbollah as saying that the terror attack was “the most important and expressive answer to the treasonous meetings of some Arab countries with the leaders of the Zionist regime – countries that have chosen normalization.”
The original Hezbollah statement was carried by Al Mayadeen TV, a media close to the Lebanese militant organization.
Two Arab gunmen believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State group opened fire on people and police officers in central Israel, killing two policemen. They were shot dead by undercover officers who were nearby.
Top diplomats from four Arab countries arrived in Israel on Sunday to hold a landmark meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on regional issues, particularly to discuss the Biden Administration plan to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran.
Although Israel and its Arab allies in the region are concerned about the US plan to lift sanctions on Iran, the most contentious issue now has become Washington’s apparent intention to somehow placate Iran’s most controversial demand to remove the Revolutionary Guard from its list of terrorist organizations.
Although the meeting of diplomats in Israel on Monday might not change the decision of the Biden Administration to compromise on the issue of the IRGC, any sign of cooperation between Arab states and Israel is seen as a threat to Iran’s influence in the Middle East.
Iran officially has not commented on the gathering in Israel, perhaps because it does not want to create complications just before a deal with the United States. But Hezbollah is a proxy organization of the IRGC and feels it can praise the terror attack in Israel without a backlash against Tehran.
An interesting point is that the assailants are believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State group that Iran prides itself for having fought against in Iraq and Syria, but when it comes to the killing of Israelis the attack by IS becomes an act of “martyrdom.”
Mehr news agency in Tehran, another hardliner website, also called the attackers martyrs and announced, “the death and wounding of several Zionists.”
Other Iranian websites, not affiliated with the IRGC, largely ignored the news of the attack, but interestingly, Tasnim News, another affiliate also did not cover the incident. The official government news website IRNA was also silent about the attack.