no to direct involvement – ​​

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ruled out sending “volunteers” to the Palestinian Territories, indicating that the Islamic Republic does not want to be directly involved in the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. As part of an annual event held at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Khamenei yesterday met with some Iranian university students and representatives of student associations. Responding to a student’s question, the ayatollah said: “Rest assured that if it were possible to send young men to Palestine, it would have already been done.” The statements come in the context of growing pressure from ultra-conservatives to push Tehran to intervene on behalf of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the war once morest Israel in Gaza.

Iranian authorities, including Khamenei himself, have vowed revenge for last week’s Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, which claimed the lives of seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. so-called Pasdaran), including General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, considered Tehran’s key man in the Levant region. For its part, Israel prepared for an Iranian response to the attack, placing its armed forces on high alert, without however directly acknowledging its involvement in the air raid. In view of a possible Iranian attack, the Israeli government canceled leave for combat units, recalled reservists to air defense units and blocked GPS signals to foil possible missile attacks.