Khamenei's Representative in the IRGC: Our Youth are Fully Prepared to Annihilate Israel

Abdollah Hajizadeh, the new representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has called Israel the 'main enemy' and stated that 'our youth are fully prepared to annihilate Israel.' According to Fars News Agency, the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei in the IRGC said during a ceremony in Ahvaz on Tuesday, 'We are now ready to conquer Jerusalem and destroy the occupying regime of Quds.' Abdollah Hajizadeh was appointed to the position of 'Representative of the Supreme Leader in the IRGC' by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei about two weeks ago. Iranian officials have repeatedly referred to Israel as a 'cancerous tumor' and promised to destroy the country. The United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and several other countries have repeatedly criticized the verbal attacks of senior Iranian officials against Israel and have strongly condemned threats to annihilate Israel. The Israeli government also describes Iran as an existential enemy, citing statements from various Iranian officials over the past four decades. The remarks of the Supreme Leader's representative in the IRGC come about a month after another senior IRGC official threatened Israel, which drew critical reactions from Russia. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, had stated about a month ago in Tehran during a ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the military commander of Hezbollah, that 'the retribution for Imad Mughniyeh's blood is not the firing of a missile and killing one person; the retribution for this blood is the destruction of the Zionist regime, and the enemy knows that this is inevitable.' Soleimani's comments prompted a response from Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, who said in the presence of his Iranian counterpart that statements like 'erasing Israel from the map' are unacceptable and 'this is a completely wrong way to advance a country's interests.' Regarding Iran's missile program and regional actions, Abdollah Hajizadeh also praised 'Iran's missile advancements,' stating, 'We started with a mortar and... our hands have reached long-range missiles.' One day earlier, Reuters reported that some European countries are in negotiations to preserve the JCPOA and focus on Iran's missile program and regional actions. At the EU foreign ministers' meeting held in Brussels on Tuesday, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Foreign Minister, emphasized the need to preserve the JCPOA and urged the EU to impose sanctions against Iran's missile program and actions in the Middle East. In recent months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of solidifying its military presence in Syria and has called on the international community to pay attention to 'Iran's ultimate goal of war with Israel and the destruction of Israel.' Netanyahu referred to Iran as 'the source of aggression in the Middle East' during a trip to France, stating that Tehran is 'present everywhere; in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, and also in Yemen and Gaza.' The Israeli Prime Minister had previously stated in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, showing pieces of an 'Iranian drone' that was shot down by Israel, 'If necessary, we will act against Iran.' These remarks provoked a strong reaction from Mohsen Rezaei, the Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran, who said that if Israel wants to do something, it should 'know that we will turn Tel Aviv into dust.'