{"id":554071,"date":"2026-07-22T13:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T13:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554071\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T13:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T13:22:14","slug":"fearing-retribution-on-regime-leaders-iran-avoids-broad-attack-on-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/554071\/","title":{"rendered":"Fearing retribution on regime leaders, Iran avoids broad attack on Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran is avoiding a broad, direct attack on Israel because it fears Israeli strikes on senior regime figures and institutions vital to its survival, Iran researcher Beni Sabti told 103FM on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Sabti, an Iran researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, spoke with Ron Kofman and Prof. Aryeh Eldad following an Al Hadath report citing an Israeli security source who said that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a> was not in the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strength of the public lies in Tehran, as we saw during the protests, and that is what Iran fears,\u201d Sabti said, explaining Iran\u2019s concern over a possible Israeli attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian regime fears our involvement because they know that we are going straight to the center. We are targeting the most important part and focusing on senior officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey crossed a threshold on Sunday. There may be elements within the Revolutionary Guards that are beginning to pick at us and provoke us, testing how far they can go in angering Israel, and woe to them. There are always rogue elements within rogue elements. It has become like Hamas<\/a> and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Let me be clear: Iran has shifted into terror organization mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MembersMembers of special IRGC forces attend a rally marking the annual Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan in Tehran, Iran, April 29, 2022. (credit: MAJID ASGARIPOUR\/WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY) VIA REUTERS)Iran refraining from broad attack on Israel<\/p>\n

Asked why Iran was refraining from launching a broad, direct attack on Israel, Sabti said: \u201cThey know that, first and foremost, we focus on individuals, and from our familiarity with them, we truly know how to reach them, as we saw on previous occasions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are no American restrictions, we know how to do the job. We focus on facilities and institutions that are important to the regime\u2019s survival, such as the Revolutionary Guards<\/a>\u2019 internal security headquarters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people who do not respect the rule of law and who are truly anarchists, and the Revolutionary Guards are like that,\u201d Sabti said. \u201cThere are people who do not respect the law and even enjoy doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cA group of far-left activists, without informing Khomeini at the time, climbed the fences in 1979, seized the US Embassy in Tehran and presented the leadership with a fait accompli. They later became the nucleus of the Revolutionary Guards. That is who we are dealing with. They act, and afterward they come and say, \u2018This is what happened.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMojtaba, given his physical limitations and while inside the tunnel, what can he really do?\u201d<\/p>\n

US strikes on communications towers having severe impact<\/p>\n

Sabti later addressed the impact of US strikes in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public does not count, neither on this side nor for the Revolutionary Guards,\u201d he said. \u201cThe strikes are having an impact, and they were severe. Those bridges are not functioning. They took down 116 communications towers, which is a great deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn southern Iran, where everything is failing and everyone is poor, do you think they built a communications tower for the public? They built it for the Iranian Navy\u2019s headquarters and for the Revolutionary Guards. In Iran\u2019s periphery, no one cares about the public, and, incidentally, they do not care about the public in Tehran either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabti concluded by addressing Khamenei\u2019s condition and motivations.<\/p>\n

\u201cRevenge has become the strategic issue,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you connect that to the missiles, the nuclear program and the terrorism program, then, of course, reviving Hezbollah<\/a> is perhaps the most important objective.<\/p>\n

\u201cIranian blindness could still cost them dearly. Revenge has become a strategic event, something fundamental for him, because he saw his father evaporate into the air. Therefore, we may be able to exploit precisely that blindness and extremism to our advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran is avoiding a broad, direct attack on Israel because it fears Israeli strikes on senior regime figures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,87,53065,21453,46,159370,43,157283,3336],"class_list":["post-554071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-irgc","tag-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps","tag-israel","tag-mojtaba-khamenei","tag-news","tag-operation-roaring-lion","tag-tehran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}