Iran refuses to fight with Israel for Hamas

Iran will continue to provide "political and moral" support to Hamas but will not directly intervene in the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Iran's Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei told Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during a meeting in early November, three sources familiar with the talks told Reuters.

Khamenei also demanded that Haniyeh rein in Hamas representatives, who are actively urging Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah to fully join the war against Israel.

Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, have said publicly several times that they do not want the war between Israel and Hamas to spread throughout the region.

Three Reuters sources close to Hezbollah said the group was caught off guard by the Hamas attack on Israel. Interlocutors of the agency said that the members of Hezbollah were not even in combat readiness in the villages near the border, and they had to be quickly mobilized.

"We woke up and saw war," said the Hezbollah commander.

On the day of the attack on Israel, the military commander of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, called on all allies from the "axis of resistance" - an unofficial political and military coalition led by Iran - to join the war.

"Our brothers in the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, this is the day your resistance will unite with your people in Palestine," he said in an audio message.

Still, Iran will not directly intervene in the conflict unless it is itself attacked by Israel or the United States, said six officials with direct knowledge of Tehran's position. Instead, Iranian authorities plan to continue using a network of allies, including Hezbollah, to launch missile and drone strikes against Israeli and American targets in the Middle East, sources told Reuters.