Leader: Zionists will receive ’heavier slap’
Iran’s Leader on Tuesday praised the Palestinian youth and masterminds of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against Israel for achieving a remarkable victory, rejecting as “miscalculations” the claims that the “epic” act was not a “Palestinian job”.
“The usurping Zionist regime suffered an irreparable defeat both in terms of military and intelligence,” Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei told a graduation ceremony of military cadets in Tehran.
Some US and Israeli officials had accused Tehran of being behind the attack. However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that he had “not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there’s certainly a long relationship”.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the Israelis should blame themselves for the defeat but instead, they have opted to play the victim.
The Leader said no Muslim nation in contemporary history has ever faced a regime as hostile and cruel as Israel. Neither has any nation been under as much pressure, siege, and shortage as the Palestinian nation.
“In addition, the US and the UK have not supported any cruel government as much they supported the fake regime” of Israel, he added.
However, now that the evil and cruel enemy has received the slap, it has adopted a policy of playing the victim, he said, adding, “Others including the media of the global arrogance help it.”
“The Zionists should know that after massacring the people of Gaza, they will receive a heavier slap.”
War crime
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday the Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 704 people and injured more than 3,900 people since the unprecedented operation by Hamas.
Israeli energy minister Israel Katz said on Monday that he had instructed authorities to cut the water supply to the Gaza Strip.
Secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Kazem Gharibabadi denounced the move as a “war crime,” Press TV reported.
Nearly 200K displaced
Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian office said on Tuesday that nearly 200,000 people or nearly a tenth of the Gaza population have fled their homes since the start of hostilities, adding that it is poised for shortages of water and electricity due to a possible blockade, Reuters reported.
“Displacement has escalated dramatically across the Gaza Strip, reaching more than 187,500 people since Saturday. Most are taking shelter in schools,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a Geneva briefing, stating further displacement was expected as clashes continue.
The World Health Organization said that it had reported 13 attacks on health facilities in the Gaza Strip since the weekend and that its medical supplies stored there had already been used up. The organization on Tuesday called for a humanitarian corridor into the Gaza Strip as Israel imposes a siege on the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
Also, an AFP photographer and a non-governmental organization said Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt — its only one not controlled by Israel — was hit by an Israeli airstrike Tuesday for the third time in 24 hours.
The regime’s embassy in the US said on Tuesday that the death toll from Hamas’s attack on Israel has now exceeded 1,000, AFP reported.
The EU and [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council called for sustained aid to the Palestinian Territories on Tuesday. “They stressed the importance of sustained financial support for UNRWA (the UN relief agency for Palestinians) and to continue humanitarian and development support for Palestinians in the occupied territories,” said a joint declaration read out by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
This was while the first wave of US security assistance was on its way to Israel, announced White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday, adding that more US assistance is to come.
Prisoner swap
Qatar said Tuesday it was too soon to start brokering talks on a potential prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas after the resistance group captured around 150 Israelis in the wide-scale surprise attack.
An American mayor has been slammed for promoting violence and Islamophobia, over his “abhorrent” remarks referring to pro-Palestine protesters as “extremists” who support “terrorism”.
As fighting is underway between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli regime, many have expressed their support for Palestine. Hundreds of people marched in Manhattan’s New York City on Sunday to express their support for Palestine. Another pro-Palestine rally took place outside the Israeli consulate in New York City on Monday. It was organized by Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led advocacy organization.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that in separate phone calls with a number of his counterparts from Muslim countries, he called for an immediate emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss the Palestinian issue.
In a telephone conversation with OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha on Monday, he expressed Iran’s readiness to play host to the emergency meeting.