BEIRUT, February 9. /TASS/. Iran will continue its support for Lebanon and Islamic resistance forces in the region, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said.
"Iran will continue supporting Lebanon and resistance forces. We consider Lebanon’s security as the security of Iran and the entire region," he said at a joint news conference with his acting Lebanese counterpart, Abdallah Bou Habib.
According to the top Iranian diplomat, Israel "has failed to achieve either of its goals" in the Gaza Strip after four months of hostilities thanks to the resistance forces in Lebanon and Palestine. He also called on the United States to stop supporting Israel, which is seeking to "drag the United States into the war in the Middle East."
According to the IRNA news agency, Abdollahian arrived in Lebanon for "talks and consultations with Lebanese authorities and leaders of the groups that are part of resistance forces in the region on the complete cessation of the Zionist regime’s (Israel’s - TASS) crimes against the Gaza people, blockade lifting, assistance to the Gaza people, and a form of governance in the enclave after combat operations end."
The Axis of Resistance, an informal Iran-led coalition of Muslim groups in the Middle East, includes mostly Shiite paramilitary groups, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah party, the Palestinian Hamas movement, the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.