Iranian Lawmakers To Visit Syria, Lebanon Amid Escalation

Intense expert debates over whether Israel will launch full-scale war against Iran’s main strategic ally, Hezbollah, is underway amid the Lebanese terrorist entity’s aerial incursions into Israel.

Iran International contacted a number of leading Israeli and American experts about the possibility of a military clash between Israel and the clerical regime in Tehran.

Yigal Carmon, the former Israeli counter-terrorism adviser who predicted Hamas’ war against Israel in early September on Iran International, said “The Americans are there to preempt Iran.“

The US military sent additional naval groups to the Eastern Mediterranean, including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. Iran International was the first news organization to report on Carmon’s prescient MEMRI article from August 31.

Carmon, whose voice has been ubiquitous in the international and Israeli media since the outbreak of the war, said, “Hezbollah is deterred,” but he quickly noted that the Lebanese Shiite terrorist movement could flip and lash out at Israel. Carmon, who served as the counter-terrorism advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, added “Hezbollah is still listening to Tehran” and “Tehran wants to use everyone else to fight for them.”

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s regime directly helped Hamas prepare its massacre of over 1,200 people in southern Israel.

In a debate on Israel’s channel 13 on Wednesday, one of the panelists argued for an Israeli preemptive military strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Yaakov Katz, the former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post and defense expert, said, “I don’t see Israel initiating an attack against Iran right now. There is no benefit for Israel to expand this conflict and this war beyond what is happening in Gaza.”

He continued that “On the contrary, Israel wants to contain the war to one place and to Gaza. However, if Iran were to attack Israel, and to think they can take advantage of the situation, in that case, I think we would definitely see a significant Israeli response, if Iranian missiles, for example, were fired at Israel.”

Katz is the author of “Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power.”

David Wurmser, a former Senior Advisor for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for US vice president Dick Cheney, said, “Israel needs to reverse fundamentally the strategic momentum regionally, which accelerated against it dramatically following the catastrophe of the last few days. To do so, it cannot sufficiently deliver such a tectonic geostrategic shift within the confines of Gaza alone, although this must clearly result in a thorough exorcism of Hamas from Gaza.”

Wurmser, who was also the National Security Advisor to John Bolton, added, “Iran’s strategic vulnerability emanates from its most critical assets. First its deployment via Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Assad’s regime in Syria, which in turn also relies heavily on Hezbollah’s and the IRGC presence in Syria. Their destruction, and the destabilization of Assad’s regime, thus can administer a devastating blow that begins to seize the geostrategic momentum and turn the tide from last weekend’s disaster into anxiety in Iran’s regime.”

According to Wurmser, “This in turn can encourage Iranians to escalate their own quest for freedom, thus devastatingly exacerbating Tehran’s anxiousness, and the resulting image of besieged weakness. In this way, the war began in Gaza, but must end in Tehran.”

Wurmser warned that “Israel just learned that waiting to allow your enemy to get close or to amass great power must not inform action. Iran’s nuclear program cannot be allowed to remain at the level it currently is. It will not yield voluntarily, any more than Hamas, akin to a cobra, can be tamed.”

Carmon argues that Hamas should not be compared to the terrorist Islamic State movement, rather to the German Nazi paramilitary Einsatzgruppen. He wrote that “The mission of Hamas was to carry out a typical Hamas Einsatzgruppen attack: They hunted down Jewish women, men, children, Holocaust survivors, and the elderly, and murdered them with unspeakable cruelty.”

Carmon continued “Videos of the horrific crimes carried out by Hamas were published for public consumption. MEMRI is creating a quasi-Yad Vashem repository of the atrocities, so that no one forgets, and no one is allowed to forget.”

However, the mission told The Newsweek on Tuesday that Iran was not directly involved in the devastating Hamas infiltration attack that occurred over the weekend.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, praising the Hamas attack, has denied Tehran's involvement. Over 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians were killed, and the operation has led to a significant Israeli military response in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians.

On Tuesday, the Iranian mission to the UN echoed Khamenei's statements while recognizing that Tehran has empowered Palestinian armed groups to launch attacks against Israel. The mission stated,” We have supported Palestinian fighters in acquiring fishing skills…They independently determine when, where, and how to engage in fishing according to their very own needs and interests."

The mission alleged that reports of direct Iranian involvement are intended to identify "a scapegoat to shift the blame.".

Khamenei mentioned on Tuesday that Israel and its supporters have been spreading rumors, including the claim that Islamic Iran was behind the action, which he refuted.

Hamas initially confirmed direct support from Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah for its infiltration attack but later revised its statement to suggest broader backing from Tehran, though not direct operational assistance. Both US and Israeli officials have also stated that so far there is no evidence of Iran taking an active role in the attack.

Abdolreza Davari, a former confidant of Ahmadinejad said in a message on X social platform “We stand by anyone who fights against Israel, even if that person is Mia Khalifa, a former porn star, who has now cleansed her record of [moral] corruption through her explicit support for the oppressed Palestinian people and her struggle against the crimes of the Zionists.”

Mia Khalifa is a Lebanese-American media personality and former adult film actress and webcam model. Born and raised in Lebanon, she and her family relocated to the United States in 2001. Her choice of career sparked controversy in the Arab world and beyond, particularly after the release of a video in which she appeared in a sex video while wearing a hijab. The scene brought her both immediate fame and criticism from writers and religious figures. In 2015, Khalifa was named the "Number 1 Porn Star" on Pornhub.

Khalifa has faced various controversies over her opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After the Hamas attack on Israel, she received backlash for a post on X in which she encouraged Palestinian militants to "flip their phones and film horizontally" after several videos emerged depicting Israeli civilians being killed. As a result, Playboy ended its association with Khalifa, and the Canadian broadcasting company Red Light Holland also terminated their contract with her.

In sustained air strikes, Israel targeted more than 200 locations within a Gaza City neighborhood that Hamas had reportedly been using as launch sites for their attacks. The Gaza health ministry reported at least 950 fatalities and 5,000 injuries in the densely populated enclave.

Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7 has resulted in over 1,200 Israeli casualties, primarily among civilians. Some individuals were taken hostage and paraded through Gaza's streets. Hamas issued threats to execute Israeli captives in response to each Gaza home struck, but it remained uncertain if these threats were carried out.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made a commitment to bring "significant changes to Gaza," hinting at the possibility of a ground offensive. Report say that more than 1,000 gunmen from Gaza were killed.

Reports also emerged of rocket fire originating from Lebanon and Syrian territory towards Israel, raising concerns about the conflict's potential expansion. Israeli forces responded with retaliatory actions.

"We do not yet know if these rockets were fired by the Syrian armed forces, by any of the many Iranian militias that exist and are welcomed by the Syrian regime, or Hezbollah or any other action," said Israel's Lieutenant Colonel Conricus.

"What we do know is that we retaliated fire toward the sources of fire, and currently the situation there is quiet."

With the escalating violence, numerous countries undertook efforts to evacuate their stranded citizens due to flight cancellations.

The conflict also spilled over into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, leading to casualties and injuries among Palestinians involved in clashes with Israeli forces.

According to copies of documents obtained by Iran International, in the first drafts of the press release from the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the US, it had clearly sent a message to Iran to stay out of the fray.

It stated: “Our countries will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities. We further call on other extremist groups, and any state that may seek to take advantage of such a situation, and in particular Iran, not to seek to exploit this situation for other ends, or to spread the conflict beyond Gaza.”

However, just hours later, when the final statements went out from President Macron of France, Chancellor Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Meloni of Italy, Prime Minister Sunak of the United Kingdom, and President Biden of the United States, the reference to the Iranian regime had disappeared.

It comes as fingers are pointing at Iran for Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Saturday morning which since it began, has seen over 1,200 Israelis dead, more than 2,000 seriously wounded, and dozens taken hostage to Gaza.

As the days go by, more revelations expose the brutality of the assault which has seen babies beheaded, elderly women taken hostage, and young women raped and burnt alive in the streets. Retaliation from Israel has seen Gaza slowly razed, key members of the terror network assassinated and huge swathes of the enclave crushed. Hundreds have already died.

While there is no conclusive evidence as to the involvement of Iran in the worst offensive against the Jewish state in 50 years, Hamas is its biggest Palestinian proxy, receiving at least $100m a year in addition to military support and training. High level leaders of Iran’s Palestinian proxies have also had multiple meetings in recent weeks orchestrated and hosted by Tehran.

The latest statement of the world leaders instead read on Tuesday: “Our countries will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities. We further emphasise that this is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage.”

The US has moved aircraft carriers into the Mediterranean as a clear deterrent to Iran not to escalate matters, from its proxies in Syria and Lebanon or its own soil.

While Iran’s Supreme Leader and President led the charge to sing out praise for the Hamas operation, General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said its moving support into the region was a clear warning to other countries, namely Iran’s proxies, ”not to get involved."

"We want to send a pretty strong message. We do not want this to broaden, and the idea is for Iran to get that message loud and clear," Brown said on Monday, naming Iran in no uncertain terms.

The group of world leaders in the latest show of support released on Tuesday, expressed its “unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and its appalling acts of terrorism”, adding that its actions have “no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned”, contrary to the regime rhetoric that Israel’s “occupation” has led to the current situation.

“In recent days, the world has watched in horror as Hamas terrorists massacred families in their homes, slaughtered over 200 young people enjoying a music festival, and kidnapped elderly women, children, and entire families, who are now being held as hostages,” the group said, while recognising what it called “the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people”.

“But make no mistake: Hamas does not represent those aspirations, and it offers nothing for the Palestinian people other than more terror and bloodshed,” it added.

On Wednesday, missiles were fired once again into Israel from Lebanon, the IDF responded with artillery fire. While Hezbollah continues to claim responsibility, the IDF Tuesday morning claimed the group responsible for the hostilities of recent days was Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also backed by Tehran.