IRAN has censured Israel’s ‘criminal’ actions and the illogical and unlawful US support for the regime, saying the continuation of resistance until full liberation of Palestine would play a leading role in the establishment of ‘lasting’ peace in the Middle East.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday on the occasion of the Palestinian Land Day, an annual event to mark the killing of six Palestinians by Israeli forces during mass protests against Israel’s seizure of their land in 1976.
In late March 1976, Israeli troops killed six Palestinians, wounded 100 others and detained hundreds more who had held peaceful demonstrations against Israel’s confiscation of 21,000 dunams (5,189 acres) of their land. Palestinians, both at home and overseas, have been marking the event known as the Land Day with rallies and remembrance ever since.
‘The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the establishment of sustainable and fair peace in the region will only be possible through the continuation of resistance until the complete end of Palestine’s occupation, the return of all Palestinian refugees to their homeland, determination of Palestine’s next system based on holding a referendum in the presence of all its main residents and finally the formation of a united Palestinian government with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital,’ the statement said.
It added that the US government’s moves in violation of the United Nations Security Council and its support for the Israeli regime, which was against international law, prove the futility of efforts by some Arab countries in the region to normalise ties with the Tel Aviv regime.
The US measures also show that ‘overt and covert efforts to establish relations with this regime cannot help restore the Palestinians’ rights and end the occupation of Arab-Islamic lands’, it said.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry further said US President Donald Trump’s decision to declare Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s ‘capital’, relocate its embassy to the disputed city and his recognition of Israel’s ‘sovereignty’ over the occupied Golan Heights have all proved that Palestinians’ anti-Israel resistance is a ‘correct path and the Land Day is one of its symbols’.
- Iran has warned that Israeli occupiers, who are already providing support for terrorists in Syria, may build a coalition with militants if their threat is not dealt with in a proper way.
The warning by Iran’s chargé d’affaires to the UN Es’haq Al-e Habib came in his address to a Security Council meeting on ‘threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts: combating the financing of terrorism’.
‘If unchecked, terrorists and occupiers will evolve into a coalition. In fact, it has already happened. Israel supports terrorists in Syria in different ways, including healing the wounds of their terrorist sisters and brothers,’ he went on to say.
‘British newspapers have reported on Takfiri terrorists being transferred to Israeli hospitals for treatment since the beginning of war in Syria. According to documents from Israeli hospitals, Israel’s army has paid millions of dollars for the treatment of terrorists injured in Syria.
‘Back in January, the Israeli military confirmed long-running reports of its collaboration with militant groups operating against the Syrian government, admitting that it had provided weapons to them.
‘The Israeli military finally confirms long-running reports of its collaboration with the militants operating against the Syrian government.’
In an interview with the British newspaper The Sunday Times, Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot, the army’s outgoing chief of staff, said the Israeli regime had supplied ‘light’ weapons to militant groups operating in Syria’s Golan Heights for ‘self-defence’.
It was the first time Tel Aviv acknowledged supplying arms to militants fighting in Syria, after numerous reports emerged of the discovery of Israeli-made weapons, military equipment, and medicine during clean-up operations by the Syrian army.
In September, The Jerusalem Post removed an ‘explosive report’, which revealed the Israeli military had supplied weapons and ammunition to militants in the Golan Heights. The paper later told Russia’s RT that the report had been taken down at the request of the Israeli army’s ‘military censor’.
The Israeli regime is reportedly arming at least seven different terror groups in Syria’s Golan Heights, including the Fursan al-Joulan militant outfit.
US President Donald Trump has formally recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, a border area the Tel Aviv regime seized from Syria in 1967.
The Golan Heights are part of the Syrian territory occupied by the Israeli regime since 1967. The occupied land has once again come under the spotlight after US President Donald Trump recognised the ‘Israeli sovereignty’ over the territory.
- Hezbollah warns that the United States could next choose to recognise Israel’s ‘sovereignty over the Tel Aviv-occupied West Bank unless the Arab world springs to action.
The Lebanese resistance movement’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah issued the caution during a speech last Tuesday.
‘When the entire world allows US President Donald Trump to declare Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s eternal capital, and especially the Arab world remains silent, this opens the way for all US violations,’ he said.
‘When institutions and international laws fail to serve the American agenda and their interest, they just simply disregard it in all disrespect, and what is called “the international community” is not able to protect any rights of the people whatsoever, including land ownership and sovereignty, taking back conquered land like what happened in Golan or what happened before that in Jerusalem al-Quds,’ Nasrallah said.
Trump recognised the holy city, which the Israeli regime occupied as part of the Palestinian territory of the West Bank during a war in 1967, as Israel’s ‘capital’ in late 2017. Last Monday, the US president took his second most controversial pro-Israeli action during his tenure by recognising the regime’s “sovereignty” over Syria’s Golan Heights. Tel Aviv occupied the latter territory during the same war.
US President Donald Trump has formally recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, a border area the Tel Aviv regime seized from Syria in 1967.
‘We must expect Trump to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank,’ Nasrallah added.
He said such a potential move ‘is part of the deal of the century’, referring to an under-wraps Washington proposal for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which reportedly includes outrageous violations against Palestinians’ historical demands.
‘They can say the Palestinian people can go and live in Gaza,’ the Hezbollah chief said, envisioning expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank as part of the US plan. He urged the Arab world to resort to what ‘conscience’ it had left by preventing these prospects.
The Arab League, Nasrallah proposed, should use its upcoming summit in Tunisia to withdraw the so-called Arab peace initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002, and instead press for more negotiations.
The initiative offers normalisation of ties between Israel and 22 Arab countries in return for Tel Aviv’s withdrawal from the West Bank.
Separately, Nasrallah pointed to remarks made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a recent visit to Lebanon. Attending the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, the top diplomat urged that the Lebanese ‘face’ Hezbollah and branded the group as an obstacle to realisation of the Lebanese people’s dreams.
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