• Second ‘October 7’ planned by Tehran against Tel Aviv, says IRGC spokesperson Ramadan Sharif

Arab News

RIYADH: Iran threatened Israel on Wednesday saying Tel Aviv must be ready for a second “October 7” for what it claimed was the killing of Seyed Razi Mousavi in Syria.

Spokesman of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ramadan Sharif, said in a statement that Israel made a mistake to assassinate Mousavi, adding that “the matter will not pass without a direct and indirect response.”

Sharif said the events of Oct. 7 were a part of revenge operations for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani.

However, Hamas has reportedly denied the claim that the Al-Aqsa Flood operations were launched to take revenge for Soleimani’s killing.

Soleimani was killed by an alleged American drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, while Sayyed Reza Mousavi, a senior member of the IRGC, was killed in Syria on Monday, allegedly by an Israeli airstrike.

The spokesman said Israel was trying to make the war on Gaza an American-Iranian regional conflict. “The Israelis are seeking to spread conflict in the region because of their strategic defeat.”

Iran’s state-run media described Mousavi as “one of the oldest advisers of the IRGC in Syria.” He was close to Soleimani, who led the IRGC’s Quds Force that plots Tehran’s extraterritorial operations throughout the Middle East, arming and funding numerous proxy militias.