Fatah spokesman: Iran is Israel’s enemy but not our friend, because it attacks Arab states

Fatah spokesman: Iran is Israel’s enemy but not our friend, because it attacks Arab states

Fatah Spokesman in Europe and Fatah Revolutionary Council member Jamal Nazzal: “Some might be misled by the equation ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ meaning those who think that if Iran attacks Israel, it is their friend. But my friend (i.e., Iran) does not attack my brother... My friendship with my friend ends when he attacks my brother, and my brother is Arab...
We are all against the Israeli targeting of Iran, there is no dispute about that. But this does not permit Iran to destroy the prosperity and stability in Arab states.”
[Al-Arabiya TV (Saudi Arabia), YouTube channel, March 15, 2026]

American-Israeli war against Iran 2026 (Operation Roaring Lion in Israel, Operation Epic Fury in the US) - a joint American-Israeli military operation against the Iranian regime that was launched on Feb. 28, 2026. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian leaders were killed in the opening strikes of the operation, whose goal was to cripple Iran's military capabilities and topple the regime. Iran responded by launching missiles and drones at Israel and numerous Arab states including Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Iraq, many of which host US military bases or were involved in mediating US-Iranian negotiations. After a few days, Iran's proxy terror organization Hezbollah in Lebanon joined the war, repeatedly attacking Israel with missiles and drones.
The war followed several months of anti-regime protests within Iran starting in late December 2025, in which the Iranian regime reportedly murdered over 30,000 of its own civilians. It also followed the American-Israeli war against Iran (Israel’s Operation Rising Lion) in June 2025, in which Israel and the US took out senior Iranian leaders and nuclear facilities, in response to two direct Iranian attacks on Israel, and Iranian proxy attacks on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah during Hamas' Oct. 7 war on Israel.

Operation Rising Lion – On June 13, 2025, Israel launched a strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile threat. Israeli jets bombed numerous military and nuclear targets as well as infrastructure across Iran. During the operation, Israel eliminated senior Iranian military officials, among them Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami, and Commander of Khatam al-Anbiya (Emergency Command) Gholam-Ali Rashid, as well as several of Iran’s senior nuclear scientists who were leading Iran’s nuclear weapons program.