Channel 14’s Tamir Morag says arms from ‘foreign actors’ let protesters kill hundreds of officers; Iranian FM: ‘Trump should now know exactly where to go to stop killings’
Times of Israel
A reporter for Israel’s right-wing Channel 14 news intimated that Israel was supplying deadly arms to Iranian protesters, sparking an outcry in Arabic media and even prompting Iran’s foreign minister to seize upon the report and accuse Israel of trying to foment war between Iran and the US.
Channel 14, which is close to and highly supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a report Tuesday that ‘foreign actors’ were arming anti-regime protesters in Iran.
According to the network’s political correspondent, Tamir Morag, the weapons have enabled protesters to kill hundreds of Iranian security personnel and protestors.
While Morag was careful in his report not to explicitly implicate Israel in the alleged weapons transfer, on social media, he was more flippant.
‘We reported tonight on Channel 14: foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed,’ he wrote. ‘Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.’
By Wednesday, Morag’s post was featured on the English-language services of both Al Jazeera and Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency.
And Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi highlighted the post, saying it showed how Israel tries to ‘drag the US into fighting wars on its behalf.’
‘With blood on our streets, Israel is explicitly gloating about having ‘armed protesters with live weapons’ and ‘this is the reason for the hundreds of dead’,’ said Araghchi.
‘Israel has always sought to drag the US into fighting wars on its behalf. But remarkably, this time they are saying the quiet part out loud,’ he said. ‘President Trump should now know exactly where to go to stop killings.’
Israel’s mainstream Channel 12 reported that Morag’s insinuation sparked fury in Israel’s security establishment. The network’s evening news on Thursday featured a segment on the incident that was titled ‘Channel 14 in the service of Iran.’
Morag, for his part, hit back at Channel 12, writing on X that the title of the report was part of a ‘childish vendetta’ against his own network because it ‘exposed the fact that you [Channel 12] work for Hamas, Hezbollah and all of the country’s biggest enemies.’
The report came as US President Donald Trump threatened to attack Iran if it did not stop killing protesters.
On Wednesday, Trump appeared to back away from the threat, saying he was assured there would be no more killings.