The ministry issued the statement on Friday, May 15, on the Nakba or “Catastrophe” that marks the establishment of the Israeli regime in 1948 at the cost of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and forcing them out of their lands.  

“On the anniversary of the imposition of the entity on the region and the world, which is truly named Nakba Day, the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran stresses the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination as well as the legal and moral responsibility of the international community to end genocide, and the occupation and hold Zionist criminals accountable,” the statement read.

It said that 78 years ago, “one of the greatest human and moral tragedies of the contemporary era” began with the declaration of the Zionist entity in historic Palestine, with its disastrous consequences still affecting West Asia and the wider world.

The ministry described Nakba Day as a reminder of “a conspiracy against Palestine and the West Asia region” by “enemies of humanity,” the direct outcome of which has been “the permanent destabilization of the region and the normalization of lawlessness and crime.”

According to the statement, Israel, with the backing of the United States, Britain, Germany, Canada and several European countries, has committed the “most heinous violations of international law” over the past eight decades.

And in the past three years, the ministry added, the “colonial plan to erase Palestine” had entered a new phase, as Israel has unleashed a “ruthless genocide” against Palestinians using advanced weapons supplied by the US and its Western allies.

Despite the ongoing Israeli crimes, the unlawful pressure exerted by the United States has obstructed justice against Israeli leaders, a move which has made successive US administrations “accomplices” in the genocide of Palestinians, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

It reiterated Iran’s support for the Palestinian people’s fundamental right to resist occupation and apartheid, rejecting any plan involving the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank.

The statement also reaffirmed Iran’s unchanged and principled stance on supporting the Palestinian people’s right of return to their ancestral lands and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital.