The tone of threat between Iran and Israel escalated in conjunction with European and American pressure on Iran with a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations, in light of the stalled talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday that he expected the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations to issue a clear warning to Iran about its nuclear program.
"We expect the Board of Governors to issue a clear warning signal to the regime in Tehran and make clear that if they continue with their defiant nuclear policy, they will pay a heavy price," Bennett told a parliamentary committee.
Bennett met last week with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, before a meeting of its board of governors.
In parallel, the Israeli Ynet news website quoted an Israeli official today, Tuesday, as saying that Iran already has enough enriched uranium to manufacture three nuclear bombs.
The Israeli official, whose identity was not revealed by the website, stated that the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors will vote on a resolution calling on Iran to fulfill its obligations, but will not criticize the Iranian regime.
He expressed his hope that the UN Security Council, after the IAEA vote, would consider imposing sanctions on Iran.
Threatening to flatten Tel Aviv and Haifa
On the other hand, the semi-official Iranian news agency, Tasnim, quoted the commander of the Iranian army’s ground forces, Kiomars Heidari, as saying on Tuesday that Iran would destroy the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if Israel made any mistake.
"For any mistake the enemy makes, we will flatten Tel Aviv and Haifa by order of the Supreme Leader," Haidari said.
"Our forces possess a huge amount of military equipment to respond to any foolish move by the enemy," he added.
IAEA Board of Governors
On the other hand, the United States and the three European signatories to the nuclear agreement with Iran (the United Kingdom, France and Germany) submitted the text of a resolution to the International Atomic Energy Agency criticizing Iran's lack of cooperation with the UN body, according to two diplomatic sources said Tuesday.
A European diplomat said that "the text was submitted during the night", which was confirmed by a second source.
The text urges Iran to cooperate fully with the agency, and is the first of its kind since a similar measure was adopted against Tehran in June 2020, and is also an indication of the impatience of Western powers due to the stalemate that occurred in talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement in March. .
It is likely that it will be voted on Thursday, coinciding with a week-long meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which includes 35 members, according to a diplomat.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh criticized the draft resolution on Monday, saying it would have "a negative impact on our cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and on our negotiations."
In turn, China and Russia, which are still parties to the nuclear deal along with Britain, Germany and France, have warned that any such decision would derail the negotiations.
Moscow's representative to the United Nations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said on Twitter that "Russia will not be a party to a decision of this kind."
In a report late last month, the agency said it still had unanswered questions about traces of enriched uranium found at three undisclosed sites in the country.
The 2015 agreement allowed for the lifting of sanctions imposed on Iran, in exchange for restricting its nuclear program;
However, its effects have become null and void since Washington withdrew from it under former President Donald Trump in 2018 and re-imposed severe sanctions on Tehran, which prompted the latter to retreat from its commitments.