Regional
Only Gaza ceasefire will delay retaliation, say Iranian officials
In Israel, many observers believe a response is imminent after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would “harshly punish” Israel for the strike in Tehran.

Only a ceasefire deal in Gaza stemming from hoped-for talks this week would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil, three senior Iranian officials said.
Iran has vowed a severe response to Haniyeh’s killing, which took place as he visited Tehran late last month and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement. The U.S. Navy has deployed warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli defenses.
One of the sources, a senior Iranian security official, said Iran, along with allies such as Hezbollah, would launch a direct attack if the Gaza talks fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations. The sources did not say how long Iran would allow for talks to progress before responding.
With an increased risk of a broader Middle East war after the killings of Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, Iran has been involved in intense dialogue with Western countries and the United States in recent days on ways to calibrate retaliation, said the sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
In comments published on Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey confirmed Washington was asking allies to help convince Iran to de-escalate tensions. Three regional government sources described conversations with Tehran to avoid escalation ahead of the Gaza ceasefire talks, due to begin on Thursday in either Egypt or Qatar.
“We hope our response will be timed and executed in a way that does not harm a potential ceasefire,” Iran’s mission to the U.N. said on Friday in a statement. Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said calls to exercise restraint “contradict principles of international law.”
Iran’s foreign ministry and its Revolutionary Guards Corps did not immediately respond to questions for this story. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the U.S. State Department did not respond to questions.
“Something could happen as soon as this week by Iran and its proxies… That is a U.S. assessment as well as an Israel assessment,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday.
“If something does happen this week, the timing of it could certainly well have an impact on these talks we want to do on Thursday,” he added.
At the weekend, Hamas cast doubt on whether talks would go ahead. Israel and Hamas have held several rounds of talks in recent months without agreeing a final ceasefire.
In Israel, many observers believe a response is imminent after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would “harshly punish” Israel for the strike in Tehran.
“We are closely following what happens in Beirut and Tehran, and are working to thwart any (possible) threat, while also preparing a variety of offensive options,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to an intelligence base in Northern Israel.
“We are determined to fulfill our mission – we must ensure the safe return of (Israel’s northern) residents to their homes, once we ensure that Hezbollah withdraws north of the Litani River.”
Iran’s regional policy is set by the elite Revolutionary Guards, who answer only to Khamenei, the country’s top authority. Iran’s relatively moderate new president Masoud Pezeshkian has repeatedly reaffirmed Iran’s anti-Israel stance and its support for resistance movements across the region since taking office last month.
Meir Litvak, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, said he thought Iran would put its needs before helping its ally Hamas but that Iran also wanted to avoid a full-scale war.
“The Iranians never subordinated their strategy and policies to the needs of their proxies or protégées,” Litvak said. “An attack is likely and almost inevitable but I don’t know the scale and the timing.”
Iran-based analyst Saeed Laylaz said the Islamic Republic’s leaders were now keen to work towards a ceasefire in Gaza, “to obtain incentives, avoid an all-out war and strengthen its position in the region.”
Laylaz said Iran had not previously been involved in the Gaza peace process but was now ready to play “a key role.”
Iran, two of the sources said, was considering sending a representative to the ceasefire talks. However, they said the representative would not directly attend the meetings but would engage in behind-the-scenes discussions “to maintain a line of diplomatic communication” with the United States while negotiations proceed.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York told Reuters that Tehran would not have a representative present on the sidelines of the ceasefire talks. Officials in Washington, Qatar and Egypt did not immediately respond to questions about whether Iran would play an indirect role in talks.
Two senior sources close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah said Tehran would give the negotiations a chance but would not give up its intentions to retaliate.
A ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a smaller “symbolic” response, one of the sources said.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry.
Iran has not publicly indicated what would be the target of an eventual response to the Haniyeh assassination. Reuters
On April 13, two weeks after two Iranian generals were killed in a strike on Tehran’s embassy in Syria, Iran unleashed a barrage of hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles towards Israel, damaging two airbases. Almost all of the weapons were shot down before they reached their targets.
“Iran wants its response to be much more effective than the April 13 attack,” said Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East policy.”
Nadimi said such a response would require “a lot of preparation and coordination” especially if it involved Iran’s network of allied armed groups opposing Israel and the United States across the Middle East, with Hezbollah the senior member of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” that along with Iraqi militias and Yemen’s Houthis have harried Israel since Oct. 7.
Two of the Iranian sources said Iran would support Hezbollah and other allies if they launched their own responses to the killing of Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, who died in a strike in Beirut the day before Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.
The sources did not specify what form such support could take.
Regional
Iran’s Khamenei cites need to further develop Iran’s military after Trump threats
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday questioned U.S. sincerity in seeking talks with Tehran while imposing tougher sanctions echoing those Trump implemented during his first, 2017-21 term in office.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Iran should further develop its military, including its missiles, after U.S. President Donald Trump made threats of force against Tehran if it refused to negotiate over its nuclear programme, Reuters reported.
Khamenei spoke a day after Iran’s U.N. ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, condemned what he called “reckless and inflammatory statements” by Trump in interviews with the New York Post and Fox News in which he said he preferred doing a deal to prevent Tehran developing a nuclear weapon to bombing the country.
“Progress should not be stopped, we cannot be satisfied (with our current level). Say that we previously set a limit for the accuracy of our missiles, but we now feel this limit is no longer enough. We have to go forward,” Khamenei said, citing a need to focus on innovation in the Iranian military.
“Today, our defensive power is well-known, our enemies are afraid of this. This is very important for our country,” he added after visiting a Tehran exhibition showcasing the latest developments in Iran’s defence sector.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that during the exhibition a jet-powered “suicide drone” – loitering munitions that hover over targets – was unveiled with imagery of a submarine-launched kamikaze drone displayed for the first time, read the report.
Tehran insists its ballistic missile programme is purely defensive but it is seen in the West as a destabilising factor in a volatile, conflict-ridden region.
Khamenei, who said on Friday that talks with the United States were “not smart, wise or honourable”, made no mention of Trump in his remarks on Wednesday
Trump last week restored his “maximum pressure”, policy towards Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero to push the Islamic Republic into a deal that would severely constrain its disputed nuclear programme.
Western powers have long suspected that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme is a disguised project to develop nuclear bomb material. Iran denies this, saying it seeks nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday questioned U.S. sincerity in seeking talks with Tehran while imposing tougher sanctions echoing those Trump implemented during his first, 2017-21 term in office.
Iravani, Tehran’s United Nations ambassador, wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council that the Trump administration’s policy “reinforces unlawful, unilateral coercive measures and escalates hostility against Iran.”
Though Iran has long denied nuclear weapon ambitions, it is “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to 60% fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December, Reuters reported.
Tehran has in recent months announced new additions to its conventional weaponry, such as its first drone carrier and an underground naval base amid rising tensions with the U.S. and its regional arch-enemy Israel.
Regional
Iran alerts UN to Trump threat of force, says it will defend itself
Iravani urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn Trump’s brazen rhetoric.

Iran alerted the United Nations on Tuesday to what it described as “reckless and inflammatory statements” by U.S. President Donald Trump threatening the use of force, and warned that “any act of aggression will have severe consequences.”
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, seen by Reuters, Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani referenced remarks made by Trump in interviews with the New York Post and Fox News, in which he spoke of a preference to do a deal to stop Tehran getting a nuclear weapon over bombing the country, Reuters reported.
“These reckless and inflammatory statements flagrantly violate international law and the U.N. Charter,” Iravani wrote to the 15-member council.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran warns that any act of aggression will have severe consequences, for which the U.S. will bear full responsibility,” he said. “Iran will resolutely defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national interests against any hostile action.”
Trump last week restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He also said he was open to a deal and expressed a willingness to talk to Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, read the report.
Pezeshkian on Monday questioned the United States’ sincerity, while Iravani wrote in his letter that the U.S. policy “reinforces unlawful, unilateral coercive measures and escalates hostility against Iran.”
Iravani urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn Trump’s “brazen rhetoric.”
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December.
Regional
Egypt to host emergency Arab summit to discuss ‘serious’ Palestinian developments
Trump’s suggestion, made at a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week.

Egypt will host an emergency Arab summit on 27 February to discuss what it described as “serious” developments for Palestinians, according to a statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry on Sunday.
The summit comes amid regional and global condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion to “take over the Gaza Strip” from Israel and create a “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere.
Trump’s suggestion, made at a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, infuriated the Arab world, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia — key allies of Washington.
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