TEHRAN- The Israeli assassination of a top military advisor for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Syria has been strongly denounced by Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who also said that the occupying regime was driven by futility and despair to carry out the atrocity.

In a Saturday interview with the Arabic-language television news network al-Mayadeen, Vahidi said that the targeted murders are a sign of the complete desolation and suffering that the Israeli regime is already going through.

He said that while on “an official mission in Syria, Brigadier General Seyyed Razi Mousavi was brutally targeted in broad daylight.”

“Israel has absolutely no regard for morality or international principles.”

“It will never weaken the Axis of Resistance; on the contrary, it will contribute to its further growth and empowerment,” declared the Iranian minister in reference to the assassination of an Iranian advisor in Syria.

“Israel is caught in a downward spiral and on the path to decline. It is behaving insanely, and this is accelerating its collapse,” Vahidi pointed out.

The Iranian interior minister noted that the blood of Palestinian martyrs and the slain IRGC commander “will certainly uproot the occupying entity.”

Addressing the Tel Aviv regime on Friday, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Brigadier General Ismail Qaani, said that the Israeli regime’s assassination of General Mousavi is a result of the regime’s ongoing conflict with the Gaza Strip.

General Qaani also said that “you assassinate Martyr Brigadier General Seyyed Razi Mousavi because you could not achieve anything in the Gaza battleground.”

During a funeral procession on Thursday for General Mousavi, Major General Hossein Salami, the chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said that Iran’s response to Israel’s assassination of the top military advisor in Syria will be confined to the complete overthrow of the occupying regime.

“Seyyed Razi’s martyrdom came out of the incapability of the Zionist regime,” he said. “We will never exercise patience in the face of the martyrdom of our people. Seyyed Razi’s revenge will be nothing but the elimination of the Zionist regime.”

Salami said that Mousavi was “one of the most experienced and effective” resistance front commanders for the IRGC.

He stated that Mousavi had never strayed from the path of jihad (endeavor for the sake of God) throughout the last 45 years and that the commander was a close companion of Iran’s renowned anti-terror hero Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

“He remained steadfast after the assassination of Haj Qassem and accompanied Qaani,” Salami said.

“The enemy knew him better than us because it had received severe blows from him. The enemy knew what role and influence he had on the endless chain of power.”

Salami said that the Palestinians themselves coordinated and carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, which was initiated on October 7 against Israel by Hamas. 

He said that the operation was a response to 75 years of Israeli occupation, atrocities against Palestinian youth, the regime’s nightly incursions into the West Bank, and the desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The resistance groups “Hamas and Jihad are capable of producing weapons inside Gaza… The resistance will not end, but what ends is the Zionist regime’s power.”

He went on to add, “Certainly, the Zionist regime is not capable of providing a peaceful life for the world’s Jews. It is not able to continue in the face of the people of Gaza.”

Addressing a conference of clerics and seminary teachers, held in the holy city of Qom on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian declared that more than 80 days had passed since the Gaza war, yet “the Zionist regime has achieved nothing.”

“According to Hamas commanders, only 14% of the resistance capacity has been damaged so far,” the foreign minister said.

According to Amir Abdollahian, the length of Hamas tunnels currently exceeds the region of Gaza, and drone production operations have not been shuttered for even an hour since Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on Oct. 7.

“Hamas captured valuable security and military forces of the Zionist regime on the first day of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” he continued.

The minister mentioned the resistance’s growing popularity, stating that Hamas now controls both Gaza and the ongoing war.

“The Zionist regime, meanwhile, has changed its goal in Gaza several times, but has failed,” the minister added.

Mousavi, a senior IRGC commander, was martyred in a missile attack by the regime against the Sayyeda Zeinab neighborhood of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday. 

He was martyred while serving as part of Iran’s military advisory mission in the Arab country.

The strike occurred in the midst of the Israeli regime’s battle against Gaza, which began on October 7 in response to an operation known as Operation al-Aqsa Storm that was orchestrated by the resistance movements in the Palestinian territory.