Iran: US greenlights resumption of Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza
Iran said on Saturday Israel’s fresh attacks on the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 240 people in just 24 hours, had been greenlighted by the United States.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, in a post on X, called the new Israeli crimes a “great moral scandal” for the US, which “reveals the true colors of the American human rights” to the world.
Kanaani said the resumption of Israeli attacks after a seven-day hiatus added to a long list of US war crimes, child killing and ethnic cleansing to the harrowing crime of killing more than 16,000 Palestinians over the past 48 days in Gaza, where the week-long truce allowed the exchange of captives held by Hamas for Palestinians imprisoned in
Israel.
US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken blamed Hamas for the broken truce on Friday and claimed that he was already seeing signs that Israel had taken new steps to protect civilians as it resumed its military campaign.
Speaking just before his departure from Dubai at the end of a two-day Middle East visit, Blinken said it was “important to understand why the pause came to an end: It came to an end because of Hamas. Hamas reneged on commitments it made.”
Israel has also publicly blamed Hamas for the end of the temporary truce, but Hamas has said Israeli airstrikes were to blame.
US supports attacks
Blinken said Washington remains committed to supporting Israel’s right to self-defense.
Later on Thursday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said Washington supports the resumption of attacks in Gaza after the end of the truce, which Netanyahu had affirmed would happen to destroy Hamas.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned Saturday that Israel’s aim of eliminating the Palestinian resistance group risked unleashing a decade of war.
Achieving the “total destruction of Hamas” would mean “the war will last 10 years”, Macron said at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
The Hamas resistance group is popular in the occupied territories and enjoys good relations with many regional countries, including Turkey, Iran, Syria and Qatar.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Saturday pushed back against mounting US pressure to cut Ankara’s historic ties with Hamas.
The US Treasury’s top terrorism financing official conveyed Washington’s “profound” alarm about Ankara’s past relations with Hamas during a visit to Turkey this week.
Erdogan said Saturday that Washington was well aware that Turkey does not view Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“First of all, Hamas is a reality of Palestine, it is a political party there and it entered the elections as a political party and won,” he said in remarks released by his office.
“Our expectation is that these perpetrators of genocide, these butchers of Gaza, who were caught red-handed – especially Netanyahu – will receive just punishment,” Erdogan said
on Saturday.
‘No chance for peace’
Erdogan also said that the chance for peace in Gaza after the humanitarian pause was lost for now due to what he described as Israel’s uncompromising approach, broadcaster NTV reported on Saturday.
Smoke again clouded the sky over the north of the Palestinian territory, whose Hamas government said 240 people had been killed since a pause in hostilities expired early Friday and combat resumed.
In Israel, the military’s Home Front Command reported 40 missile alerts in the south and center of the occupied territories, and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced “rocket barrages” against three Israeli municipalities near
Gaza.
According to the United Nations, an estimated 1.7 million people in Gaza – around 80 percent of the population – have been displaced by eight weeks of war.
The population is short of food, water and other essentials, and many homes have been destroyed. UN agencies have declared a humanitarian catastrophe, although some aid trucks did arrive on Saturday.