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Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday accused Israel of “genocide” and called on the Muslim world to arm Palestinians battling “the Zionist regime”.
In a speech that marked the festival of Eid al-Fitr, Iran’s supreme leader said that Israel was behaving like a “rabid dog” and a “wild wolf” in acts which are causing a humanitarian crisis and acts that must be resisted.
“A people surrounded in a small place with closed borders, unsure of having water and electricity, this population faces an armed enemy. The people resist unabated. This is a lesson for all”, he said about the ongoing conflict in Gaza Strip where over 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the past three weeks.
Khamenei also dismissed talk of a ceasefire, and said that it is a ploy used by European nations and the United States to save Israel. He added that Hamas should be re-armed as it would otherwise be “unable to defend” itself.
“The US president issued a fatwa that the resistance is disarmed so that they cannot respond to all those crimes (committed by Israel),” the supreme leader said, referring to a call by Barack Obama for the ‘disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza’.We say the opposite. The world and especially the Islamic world should arm … the Palestinian people”, he said.
His comments follow demonstrations held all over Iran in solidarity of Palestinians in Gaza and against the actions of the Israeli military on Friday. Iran doesn’t recognize Israel as a state and supports Palestinian armed groups battling Israel.
On Thursday, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, told state television that Iran had supplied Hamas with new technology to launch rockets at Israel. During the previous major conflict between Gaza and Israel in November 2012, Larijani had said that Iran was proud to have given “both financial and military support” to Hamas.
