Iran warns ‘war with Israel has already begun’ and says ‘the entire crisis in the region is Israel’s fault’

An Iranian spokesman has declared that ‘war has already begun’ with Israel as tensions between the two nations reach a boiling point.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, made the statement to the Maariv newspaper before going on to place the blame for the crisis in the Middle East squarely at the feet of Israel.

Khatibzadeh claimed that Israel ‘has murdered nuclear scientists and harmed the Iranian people’.

‘Iran is blamed for terrorism, but there is no good or bad terrorist. The entire crisis in the region is the fault of Israel,’ he said.

His comments come just days after Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett appealed to the international community for support in confronting Iran over their nuclear programme.

In his maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Bennett said Iran had breached all the ‘red lines’ aimed at curbing its nuclear weapons programme but that Israel ‘will not allow’ Tehran to get the bomb.

After claiming that an Iran-Israel war was already underway, the Iranian spokesman added that Israel ‘had done everything’ in an attempt to scupper nuclear talks with the UN in Vienna, and sought to drive a wedge between Iran and world powers.

Khatibzadeh continued: ‘Israel severely harmed our civilians and research system.

‘They speak about the Iranian nuclear threat, but Israel has hundreds of bombs, and it never signed the non-proliferation treaty for nuclear weapons.’

Meanwhile, Bennett has openly condemned Iran’s perceived plans for the region and stands steadfastly against Iran’s development of their nuclear programme, which Israel believes is gearing towards the development of warheads.

‘Iran´s great goal is crystal clear to anybody who cares to open their eyes: Iran seeks to dominate the region – and seeks to do so under a nuclear umbrella,’ Bennett said on Monday.

He called Iran´s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, the ‘butcher of Tehran’ for his past role in suppressing political dissent and accused Iran of arming, funding and training Israel´s enemies across the region.

He also suggested that Iranian meddling had brought disaster to countries like Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

‘Every place Iran touches fails,’ he said, claiming that Iranian activities threatened the entire world. He pointed to Iran´s development of attack drones, which have been blamed for a string of attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf.

In a reply later Monday on the assembly floor, Iranian diplomat Payman Ghadirkhomi accused Bennett of making baseless allegations and using ‘threatening language’ toward Iran.

‘His regime must avoid any miscalculation and adventuristic move in the region,’ added Ghadirkhomi, who is assigned to Iran’s U.N. mission.

Israel believes that Iran aims to develop nuclear weapons – a charge Iran denies – and says the international nuclear accord reached with Iran in 2015 did not include enough safeguards to keep Iran from reaching a weapons capability.

‘There are those in the world who seem to see Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as an inevitable reality, as a done deal, or they have just become tired of hearing about it,’ Bennett declared to the UN.

‘Israel doesn’t have that privilege. We cannot tire. We will not tire.

‘Israel will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.’

Iran, which says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes and denies the development of nuclear weapons, said Friday that it expected talks to resume soon on reviving the 2015 agreement scaling back its programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Speaking with Iran’s national news agency on Friday, Khatibzadeh also condemned a visit by Israel’s foreign minister to Bahrain this week to mark the establishment of relations between the two Gulf Arab states.

Khatibzadeh said the visit, which took place as Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid inaugurated the new Israeli embassy in Bahrain, left a stain on Bahrain’s rulers that ‘will not be erased’.

Tehran sees the development of relations between the states as unacceptable for the region.

Lapid met Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa on Thursday, before cutting the ribbon at the Israeli embassy in Manama, Bahrain with the nation’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Alzayani.

Lapid reportedly toured Bahrain’s headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which has faced off with Iranian vessels in recent years.

‘We condemn any scheme that bolsters Israel´s destructive presence in the region,’ Khatibzadeh said in a statement to the IRNA news agency.

Source:- Daily Mail