(Tehran) Iran on Wednesday accused Israel of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while Israel intensified its strikes on this Palestinian territory in response to a bloody Hamas attack on its soil on the 7th. october.
“The attacks by the Zionist regime have reached such intensity that it appears that the objective is the massacre of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” declared Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a letter addressed to the High UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
“The statements by the authorities of the Israeli regime and the widespread and systematic attacks by Zionist forces in the Gaza Strip show that this is a campaign of genocide of the Palestinian people,” he accused.
More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since October 7 by Hamas commandos, the majority civilians, according to Israeli authorities who estimate that around 220 Israelis, foreign or dual nationals, are being held hostage.
Hamas said Wednesday that more than 6,500 people, mostly civilians, were killed by Israeli bombings, launched in retaliation for the attack.
Earlier in the day, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s highest authority, accused the United States of “somehow directing” Israel’s operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“The United States is the unquestionable accomplice of the crimes” in Gaza, declared the supreme leader in a speech in Tehran.
They have “on their hands […] the blood of the oppressed, of children, of patients, of women and others,” he added, on 19e day of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
On October 10, Ayatollah Khamenei denied his country’s involvement in the attack of unprecedented scale and violence, while reaffirming Iranian support “for Palestine.”
Ayatollah Khamenei affirmed on Wednesday that “the Palestinian nation” would emerge “victorious” from the conflict. “The future world is that of Palestine, not that of the Zionist regime,” he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a warning to Tehran on Tuesday, saying the United States would respond “decisively” to any attack carried out by “Iran or its proxies” in the Middle East.