Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, has conveyed his well-wishes to Pouria Zeraati, the Iran International TV journalist who was attacked in a stabbing incident in London.
Dermer, a key advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former ambassador of Israel to the United States, personally reached out to Zeraati on Monday morning to convey his wishes for a swift recovery.
In the phone call, Dermer condemned the attack, suspected by many to have been carried out by covert Iranian regime security agents.
Dermer and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were both interviewed by Zeraati on his program, “Final Word”, last year.
This is believed to have further fueled Tehran's anger, leading to a crackdown on journalists expressing critical opinions of authorities, both domestically and internationally since the nationwide anti-regime 2022 uprising.
Several Iran International journalists have faced death threats and foiled assassination attempts orchestrated by Iranian regime security forces on British territory, prompting the temporary relocation of the broadcaster’s London offices to Washington last year.
The attack on Zeraati comes shortly after the disclosure of leaked top-secret intelligence documents, revealing Tehran's targeting of several UK-based personnel of Iran International TV. These threats extended to their family members based in Iran, with the imposition of financial sanctions amidst the nationwide protests in 2019.
The broadcast network says it was aware of the intimidation tactics at the time, but the documents, obtained by Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) hackers, offered indisputable proof that Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and judicial officials were coordinating the harassment efforts.
Additionally, ITV reported exclusively last December, that the regime plotted to assassinate two of Iran International’s TV anchors in London.
Iranian spies offered a people-smuggler $200,000 to assassinate Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet – codenamed “the bride and the groom” – outside their London studio.
The plot, which was foiled by a double-agent, was meant to show critics of the regime they “could do harm to them at any time”.
In December, a UK court convicted Chechen national Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev of gathering information on Iran International's London headquarters for a potential terror attack.
Prior to that, in November 2022, Volant Media, the parent company of Iran International, stated that two of its journalists had been informed by the Metropolitan Police of direct threats, posing an imminent, credible, and significant risk to their lives and those of their families. The network decided to move its broadcast operation to Washington DC temporarily in early 2023. Broadcasting was resumed from London last September.
Iran's Islamic regime has conducted hundreds of attacks against dissidents and journalists outside the country over the past 45 years.
