Leader: None can stop Resistance if Israeli crimes continue
UN decries ‘appalling reports’ of strikes on refuge site
Iran’s Leader warned Tuesday that "no one can stop" resistance forces if Israel's crimes continue, while a senior UN official denounced the "appalling reports" of the Zionist regime's attacks on civilians fleeing in the south of Gaza.
In a meeting with a group of Iranian elites on Tuesday, the Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that Muslim nations are angry at the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, adding that if Israeli crimes against Palestinians in Gaza continue, no one can stop Muslims and resistance forces.
The Leader emphasized that no matter what the Zionist regime does, it cannot compensate for the blatant defeat it suffered. He called for the trial of the Zionist regime and stated that what is before the whole world is the occupying regime’s genocidal crimes, which have been seen by everyone.
Ayatollah Khamenei also said that what is in front of the eyes of the whole world in Palestine is the Israeli regime’s crime of genocide.
Bombardments on refuge site
Israel on Tuesday bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee to ahead of an expected ground invasion, killing dozens of people in the bombardments it says are targeted at Hamas resistance fighters that administrate the besieged territory, AP reported.
The UN human rights office decried “appalling reports” that civilians who were trying to flee to southern Gaza were killed by a military strike.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani urged Israeli forces to avoid “aerial bombardments, indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks” and to “take precautions to avoid — and in any case, to minimize — loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects.”
EU calls for Iran intervention
Meanwhile, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on Iran to use its influence to prevent the spillover of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip into the entire West Asia region.
In a post on his X account, Borrell wrote, “It is in everyone’s interest to prevent a regional spillover. Urged Iran to use its influence to avoid regional escalation”.
2K US troops on
deployment alert
This is while the US military on Tuesday ordered 2,000 personnel to prepare for deployment to the Middle East as a show of force amid the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, AFP reported.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the deployment would allow the US “to respond more quickly” to the crisis, while the White House stressed it did not intend to put US combat forces on the ground.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said preparing the troops for deployment “is really about sending a signal of deterrence”.
The move comes as President Joe Biden heads to Israel today to underscore Washington’s support for its close ally.
Biden will “hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, and also hear how Israel “will conduct its operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas”.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas after the large-scale attack by the resistance movement that killed 1,400 people during a rampage through southern Israeli towns on October 7, the deadliest single day in Israel’s 75-year history.
3,000 Palestinians killed
In retaliation for the attack, Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes that have killed around 3,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health ministry, and driven around half of the 2.3 million Gazans from their homes. Israel has imposed a total blockade on the enclave, halting food, fuel, and medical supplies, which are rapidly running out.
Scores of trucks carrying vital supplies for Gaza headed towards the Rafah crossing in Egypt on Tuesday, the only access point to the enclave outside Israel’s control, but there was no clear indication that they would be able to enter.