DUBAI, November 24. /TASS/. Washington informed Tehran that it had no intention of expanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said.

"We received messages from the US that they are not seeking to expand the war [in the Gaza Strip]," he pointed out in an interview with Al Jazeera.

According to Tehran, by supporting Israel and providing it with weapons, the US is "scaling up the war," Abdollahian added. "The US is wrong if it thinks that it will be able to decide who comes to power in the Gaza Strip without taking the Palestinian people's opinion into account," the Iranian foreign minister went on to say. "It is the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance that define the future of Gaza," he emphasized.

Abdollahian said in an interview with the Financial Times on November 17 that since October 7, "messages have been exchanged between Iran and the US, via the US interests section at the Swiss embassy in Tehran." According to the top diplomat, Tehran told Washington "that Iran does not want the war to spread."

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the Palestinian group Hamas launched an incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and launched ground operations in the enclave, also carrying out air strikes on targets in the Strip, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.

Hamas announced on November 22 that an agreement on a four-day humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip had been reached through the mediation of Qatar and Egypt. The agreement stipulates the release of 50 women and children under the age of 19 who are held in Gaza in exchange for the release of 150 women and children under the age of 19 from Israeli prisons. According to Arab media outlets, the Gaza ceasefire took effect at 7:00 a.m. local time (5:00 a.m. GMT) on Friday.