The United States "disturbed the regional balance" in the Middle East, Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said on Wednesday, after the targeted killing of Hamas’s deputy leader outside of Gaza, Saleh al-Arouri, along with at least five other people in an alleged Israeli drone strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
"We will see solidarity against American policies with such actions in the region," the defense minister said on the sidelines of an Islamic Regime cabinet meeting, as per state-owned Tasnim.
"The consequences of this terror will be felt by [the US]."
IRGC vow rise of Palestinian terror in West Bank
Tasnim also reported that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) issued a warning to Israel and the US following al-Arouri's death, promising a rise in Palestinian terror in the West Bank.
The brutal action of the Zionist regime in the drone attack on south Beirut, which violated Lebanon's territorial sovereignty and led to the martyrdom of Saleh al-Arouri...showed the continuation of madness," a statement attributed to the IRGC read. "The brutality and war-mongering lust is the evil strategy of the Zionists under the support of the terrorist government of the United States of America."
The Revolutionary Guards warned that, in response to the targeted killing, Palestinian terrorists will "enter the field of Jihad with more determination...everywhere in this land, especially the West Bank."
Iran: Israel's killing of al-Arouri shows it is underachieving in Gaza
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also responded to the killing of al-Arouri on X early Wednesday morning.
The foreign minister said that it was a "terrorist act that proves that Israel has not achieved its goals in Gaza despite America's support."
He added, "Such a cowardly terrorist operation proves that the Zionist regime has not achieved any of its goals after weeks of war crimes, genocide, and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine, despite the direct support of the White House."