11 months ago
30
Iran's Supreme Leader has called on Muslim states to cease oil, food and goods exports to Israel to make it stop bombing Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack.
Ali Khamenei made the remarks during a speech on Wednesday stating, "The bombings on Gaza must stop immediately ... the path of oil and food exports to the Zionist regime should be blocked."
Israel seeks to wipe out Tehran-backed Hamas, which rules Gaza, in retaliation for the terror attack last month that killed 1,400 people and saw more than 200 hundred taken hostage. The Israeli military has launched a retaliatory campaign that extended to a ground offensive last week. Hamas authorities in Gaza say more than 8,000 people have been killed, but the figure is not be independently confirmed and can be part of the Islamist group’s psychological warfare.
"Muslim states must not cooperate economically with the Zionist regime, but denounce these catastrophes and crimes vociferously and without hesitation in all international forums."
“The scale and circumstances of what is going on must be clarified. The Zionist regime must be condemned, and the entire Muslim world must be mobilized against it,” Iran's authoritarian ruler added.
Iranian regime officials have repeatedly warned Israel of an escalation if it failed to end attacks against Gaza, threatening that Tehran’s proxies in the Middle East were ready to act. Attacks by Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq and Syria have increased against the bases hosting US forces in Iraq and Syria, while Hezbollah from Lebanon and Houthis from Yemen have also increased their missile launches against Israeli targets. The US military said Tuesday that over two dozen attacks were launched against its bases.
Khamenei repeated his customary rhetoric that the United States was complicit in Israel's "recent crimes against Palestinians".
"The Islamic world should not forget that in the crucial issue of Gaza, those standing against the oppressed Palestinian nation were the United States, France and Britain," Khamenei said to chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America".
Israel, which Tehran refuses to recognize, has long accused Iran's clerical rulers of stoking violence by supplying arms to Hamas, controlling the Gaza Strip and to militants in Syria and Lebanon. Tehran says it gives moral and financial as well as logistical support to these groups.
"One of the shameless acts of the West is accusing Palestinian fighters of terrorism," Khamenei said, despite clear evidence that the latest Hamas invasion of Israel was designed to kill as many civilians as possible.
