TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign
Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said that the United States is waging a
war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip through Israel, and further
cautioned that the current status in West Asia resembled a powder keg
which could spiral out of control.
The Iranian minister made the remarks at a joint press conference with his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor in Tehran on Sunday as Israel has dropped thousands of bombs in two weeks of bombardment of the Gaza Strip and is preparing for a ground invasion of the besieged enclave.
The
top diplomat said that the Zionist regime, acting as proxy for the US,
has launched an onslaught on the Gaza Strip and is massacring women and
children under the pretext of war against the Palestinian group Hamas.
Referring to US President Joe Biden’s visit to Tel Aviv, Amir Abdollahian said that it a “bitter and unfortunate reality” that the American leader was quick to pay an extraordinary wartime visit the occupied territories and voiced support for the Zionist regime’s assault against hospitals, mosques, churches and residential areas.
It’s a great shame that the American president announced that the US would dispatch hundreds of planes, ships and trucks filled with military equipment to the occupied territories to support the mass murder that Israel is committing in Gaza but has managed to coordinate plans for only 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter the besieged enclave, he noted.
“So, the Israeli regime has waged a proxy war against Palestinians,” the minister concluded.
The Iranian diplomat warned that the region is currently like a “powder keg”, stressing that any Israeli “miscalculation” in proceeding with the policy of genocide and forced displacement of Gazans will have “heavy and bitter consequences” for West Asia and the interests of warmongers.
“If the US and the Israeli regime do not stop their crimes against humanity immediately, there will be a possibility of anything at any moment and the region may spin out of control,” he warned.
Gaza has been hit by a relentless barrage of Israeli fire following an attack by the Hamas fighters on October 7, which Israel confirms killed at least 1,400 people and wounded over 5,000 others. The group has announced it was in response to the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and Israeli settlers’ growing violence against Palestinians.
Nearly 7,000 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip against the occupied territories during a fortnight of Palestinian-Israeli conflict aggravation, according to the press service of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday.
Israel’s military campaign since has killed at least 4,700 Palestinians, including over 1,800 children, with more than 15,900 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Sunday.
The ministry has also received 1,450 calls concerning missing people believed to be under the rubble, 800 of whom are children.
Israel's relentless bombing of Gaza has damaged half of the besieged enclave's residential units and displaced 70 percent of the population, Palestinian officials have announced on Sunday.
According to the local government's media office, around 165,000 residential units were damaged, with at least 20,000 of them completely destroyed or made unfit for habitation.
Israel’s military has also ordered 1.1 million people living in Northern Gaza to evacuate their homes, amid signs it is set to ramp up its offensive.
The bombing, as well as enforced displacement orders by the army, has pushed 1.5 million people out of their homes.
The United Nations has warned it is “impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences" as hospitals in the besieged territory are "on the brink of collapse".
Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, where some 2 million people live in an area of 140 square miles. It has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years. More than half of its population lives in poverty and is food insecure, with nearly 80% of its population relying on humanitarian assistance.
Human rights groups have stressed that depriving an occupied population of basic necessities is a war crime. Palestinian health officials have warned Gaza is rapidly running out of water and electricity, and the population faces severe shortages of food and medicine. They say hospitals in the besieged territory are under constant bombardment and facing imminent shutdown due to a lack of fuel.
Five UN agencies have warned that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is "catastrophic", calling for more international help as conditions deteriorate in the densely populated besieged enclave.
"Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities," the UN agencies said in a joint statement on Saturday, adding, "It is now catastrophic. The world must do more."
"More than 1.6 million people in Gaza are in critical need of humanitarian aid," added the statement, which was signed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN children's agency (UNICEF), the World Food Program (WFP), the UN development agency (UNDP), and the world body's population fund, UNFPA.
Tehran says the history of the apartheid regime is full of assassinations, massacre, torture and killing of Palestinian kids, and described Tel Aviv regime's atrocities and massacre of Palestinian women and children as indicative of the destitute of Zionists. Iranian officials say the Tel Aviv regime has been struggling for more than 70 years to exit its identity crisis which has been mixed with genocide, plunder, forced displacement and scores of other inhumane moves.
This article was published in Fars News Agency and is republished here under a creative commons license.
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