Russia does not believe Tehran or Beirut want Hamas-Israel war to escalate

Moscow does not believe Tehran or Beirut want the Hamas-Israel war to escalate into a regional conflagration, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has told Russia Today television. He said “neither country” has an “appetite” for “any involvement in the crisis” which erupted when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th.

Israel said Palestinian militants killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages. In response Israel has launched a full-scale war on Gaza, killing 11,320, according to the Gaza health ministry.

While cross-border exchanges between Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbullah have escalated, Mr Lavrov warned the Islamist movement might act if Israel attempts to drive 2.3 million Palestinians out of Gaza. The exchanges have killed 77 people in Lebanon, most of them Hizbullah fighters, and seven soldiers and three civilians in Israel and driven thousands from communities along the Lebanese-Israel border.

Mr Lavrov said Iran was also exercising restraint although pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria have stepped up strikes on US troops based in those countries. He said these militias may be “agitated” by Israel’s assaults on Palestinians and “bite the Americans and Israelis here and there” but this does not mean their leaders seek regional conflagration.

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The Russian minister’s assessment has been confirmed by Lebanon’s former head of security Abbas Ibrahim. “I don’t believe that Hizbullah has the interest to escalate,” he told US PBS Newshour.

Mr Ibrahim – who has been involved in negotiations to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza – said he believes the conflict “is in the Israeli government’s hand”. He claimed Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu “wants the war to be larger” as he seeks to “eliminate” Hizbullah and Hamas at the same time. “We have to stop it,” he said.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that Tehran’s policy of restraint was definitively stated early this month by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. According to three officials, the ayatollah told the head of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh that his movement “gave us no warning of your October 7th attack on Israel, and we will not enter the war on your behalf”.

However, Iranian aerospace force commander Amir Hajizadeh has warned the war has already spread. “Lebanon is taking part..and no one can control the situation.”

Meanwhile Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has threatened Lebanon. “What we are doing in Gaza we know how to do in Beirut,” he said.

While backing United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions, Russia has been largely sidelined during the Gaza war and has done nothing to halt Israel’s repeated attacks on Syria’s Damascus and Aleppo airports.

Israel has so far avoided hitting Syria’s Latakia province’s airport, which is adjacent to Russia’s Khmeimim military airbase.