Iran's foreign minister warned Israel of escalation if it failed to end aggressions against Palestinians saying that other parties in the region were ready to act, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. "If the Zionist aggressions do not stop, the hands of all parties in the region are on the trigger," Hossein Amirabdollahian was quoted as saying after Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “demolish Hamas”.
Israel's military prepared to move into the Gaza Strip to root out Hamas whose deadly rampage through Israeli border towns shocked the world after Benjamin Netanyahu convened Israel's expanded emergency cabinet in a show of unity. "Hamas thought we would be demolished. It is we who will demolish Hamas," he said.
"The responsibility for the possible opening of new fronts of resistance in the region and any escalation of today's war directly falls on the United States and the Zionist regime (Israel)," Hossein Amirabdollahian said after he met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar where they discussed the group's deadly attack in Israel "and agreed to continue cooperation" to achieve the group's goals.z
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Earlier, Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi urged France to help "prevent oppression" of Palestinians in a phone call with his counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
"The situation will be complicated ... if the crimes by the Zionist regime, including the killing of people and blockade of Gaza, are not stopped,” Ebrahim Raisi was quoted as saying, referring to Israel.
This comes as hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents sought to evacuate roughly the northern half of the territory after Israel's orders as almost 2.3 million civilians faced a deepening struggle for food, water and safety, bracing for an impending invasion.
Israeli military said that it would not target a specific route south for several hours, again urging Palestinians to leave the north en masse. The military also offered two corridors and a longer window the day before.
(With inputs from agencies)