NOURNEWS- The following headlines appeared in English-language newspapers in the Iranian capital on Saturday, October 28, 2023.
IRAN DAILY:
-- Iran, Chinastress accelerating execution of 25-year strategic agreement
First Vice President of Iran Mohammad Mokhber and Chinese Premier Li Qiang emphasized on accelerating the implementation of the 25-year strategic agreement between the two countries while the two officials held a meeting on the sidelines of the Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
There are many areas of cooperation between Tehran and Beijing, Mokhber said, adding: “If we focus on these areas and pave the ground for the private sectors of the two countries, we will reach a favorable point in realizing the goals of the 25-year agreement.”
He underlined that China is a strategic partner of Iran, and the two countries enjoy a long history of friendship.
Tehran appreciates Beijing’s assistance for its economic and social development and is firmly committed to deepening Iran-China relations, Mokhber noted.
Iran is also willing to work with China in the Belt and Road Initiative, strengthen connectivity and mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, and deepen mutual coordination within multilateral frameworks, he said.
For his part, Li said China stands ready to strengthen communication and coordination with Iran within the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, and other multilateral mechanisms, practice true multilateralism, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries.
Since the establishment of China-Iran diplomatic ties more than 50 years ago, bilateral relations have withstood the test of the fluctuating international situation and made steady progress, said the official, noting that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met twice this year and reached a series of important consensuses.
Li added that China is ready to work with Iran to implement the important consensuses reached by the two heads of state, enrich the connotation of the China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership, and bring more benefits to the two peoples.
China will continue to firmly support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity and will strongly oppose any external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs, he stressed.
The two sides should implement the comprehensive cooperation plan between the two countries, promote the Belt and Road cooperation, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields and people-to-people exchanges in such areas as education, culture, tourism, and think-tanks, as well as promoting new achievements in China-Iran cooperation, Li said.
Boosting gas transit
Also on Thursday, Mokhber voiced Iran’s readiness to develop the exploitation of the gas transit potential of the country in line with its president’s initiative, dubbed “Gas for Global Economic Recovery in Post-COVID Era”.
Addressing the 22nd Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, he called for setting up a joint fund to finance upstream and downstream petrochemical projects, Shana reported.
The vice president also proposed the launch of a regional hub, dubbed “Shanghai Energy”, with the aim of trading, swapping, and guaranteeing the security of energy resources, including fossil fuels, electricity, and renewable energies.
In addition, Mokhber expressed Iran’s readiness to export techno-engineering services and manufacture oil, gas, and petrochemical equipment.
Opening new air routes to Tajikistan
In another meeting in Bishkek on Thursday, Mokhber and Tajik Prime Minister Kokhir Rasulzoda discussed the possibility of opening new air routes and expanding the number of flights between the countries.
It was noted that Tajikistan and Iran are keen on enhancing cooperation in various sectors, including boosting mutual trade, activating the private sector, and collaborating in banking, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare.
Rasulzoda and Mokhber also discussed further strengthening the work of the intergovernmental commission.
Meanwhile, during the 78th session of the UN General Assembly in New York in September of this year, presidents Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan and Raisi of Iran expressed their support for simplifying visa procedures and increasing the number of flights between the countries.
Currently, regular air traffic between Tajikistan and Iran is being operated by Iranian Varesh Airlines and Tajik Somon Air.
-- Iran, India to finalize contract on development of Chabahar port
A contract will be finalized with India on the development of Iran’s southeastern port of Chabahar within the next two weeks, an Iranian deputy minister of roads said.
Ali Akbar Safaei — who is also the CEO of the Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) of Iran — announced that the previously agreed details of the contract between Iran and India on the development of Chabahar have changed, Tasnim news agency reported.
The problems in the contract were all settled after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi took office in August 2021, he said, adding that the only outstanding provision of the contract will be drafted in less than a month.
India has undertaken an investment of $85 million in the development of the first phase of Chabahar Port on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis, Safaei added, noting that the second phase of the project will be carried out with the investment of foreign companies.
The deputy roads minister put the total investment made so far by India in the development of the Beheshti Port of Chabahar at $25 million, which, he said, mainly includes gantry and coastal cranes.
The Indians are committed to supplying a set of equipment such as coastal, gantry, and yard cranes, as well as the equipment needed to load and unload cargo at the port, he continued.
The long-term contract, which will be finalized soon, is expected to serve the interests of the country, Safaei concluded.
-- Iran warns US will ‘not be spared’ if Gaza ‘genocide’ continues
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned that if Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip doesn’t end, then the United States will “not be spared from this fire”.
“I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome (an) expansion of the war in the region. But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire,” he told a meeting of the 193-member UN General Assembly on the Middle East, Reuters reported.
Israel has struck Gaza from the air, imposed a siege, and is preparing a ground invasion on Gaza in response to the October 7 Hamas operation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Palestinian authorities say more than 7,300 have been killed in the Israeli attacks.
Hamas has told Iran that it was ready to release civilian captives, adding that the world should push for the release of 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, Amir-Abdollahian said.
Call for release of Palestinian inmates
“The Islamic Republic of Iran stands ready to play its part in this very important humanitarian endeavor, along with Qatar and Turkey. Naturally, the release of the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners is another necessity and responsibility of the global community,” he maintained.
The Iranian diplomat urged the US “to work for peace and security, not war against people, children, and women”.
Instead of sending rockets, tanks, and bombs to be used against Gaza, the Iranian minister said, Washington must stop supporting genocide, according to Press TV.
Amir-Abdollahian also pointed out the US is watching and supporting the killing of more than 7,000 civilians in less than three weeks by the Israeli regime in Gaza.
“The genocide in Gaza must stop immediately. The forced displacement of the people of Gaza must stop immediately.”
Right to self-defense
Amir-Abdollahian also stressed the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has the right to self-defense, emphasizing that its large-scale attack against the occupying regime was a reaction to the continuation of the regime’s occupation and aggressions against the Palestinians as well as its widespread crimes in recent months.
However, he said, the US and several European countries refer to the occupying and war criminal regime as an entity that has the right to self-defense. “It is certainly not possible to change the places of the killer and the victim by misusing certain expressions.”
“According to international law, as well as hundreds of resolutions approved by this very same assembly, the entire land of Palestine is an occupied land, and accordingly, the Israeli regime is recognized as an aggressor and an occupier,” the Iranian diplomat stated.
The Palestinian nation, like any other nation under occupation, has the “legitimate right to resist the occupation using all available methods, including armed struggle”.
“Therefore, the recent hypocritical efforts to introduce the struggle of the Palestinian nation against the occupiers as terrorist actions will not mislead the free nations and the awakened minds around the world,” the Iranian minister said.
In an interview with Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep that took place in New York City, Amir-Abdollahian said if the current situation continues, and women and children and civilians are still killed in Gaza and the West Bank, anything will be possible.
“Two weeks ago, I visited the region and I met with some leaders of the countries of my region and with the leaders of the resistance in Lebanon and also the Palestinian groups ... [From] what I gathered from the plans that they have, they have their finger on the trigger. You know, much more powerful and deeper than what you’ve witnessed.”
“Therefore, I believe that if this situation continues and women and children and civilians are still killed in Gaza and the West Bank, anything will be possible ... They have their own calculations for their own security, and, as I’ve said, they decide for themselves,” he added.
-- Iran Army launches massive drill in central region
Iran’s Army Ground Force started a large-scale military drill in a central province of the country in order to boost deterrence against potential threats.
The two-day exercise, codenamed Eghtedar 1402, began on Friday in Nasrabad region of Isfahan Province with the participation of various units, Press TV reported.
Infantry regiments, armored divisions, missile and artillery units, airborne divisions, drone squads, electronic warfare units, and support teams are participating in the exercise, Brigadier General Karim Cheshak, spokesman for the military exercise, said on Friday.
These forces are deployed to the exercise area from seven different provinces after traveling an average of 1,100 km, he added.
About 200 military helicopters performed different operations on the first day.
“This exercise will last for two days, and one of its main objectives is to improve the prowess and combat readiness of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Force and enhance the country’s level of deterrence against potential threats.”
“The drill will also aim to transfer relevant experiences to younger commanders and army forces and practice multiple predetermined defense scenarios,” Cheshak added.
The first stage of the exercise, he maintained, involved the airborne and ground transfer of four combat brigades and other units to the drill area.
The second stage will involve surveillance and reconnaissance operations using unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic and detection systems, Cheshak said.
During the third and fourth stages of the drill, coastal defense scenarios and night-time airborne operations will be practiced, while offensive operations aimed at destroying the mock enemy’s targets will be carried out in the final phase, he added.
The drill came after US President Joe Biden on Wednesday warned Iran against hitting US personnel in the Middle East following a spate of attacks by regional forces allegedly affiliated with Iran on American forces in the region.
Following the Biden warning, the US military struck two facilities in eastern Syria that it claimed are used by groups linked to Iran.
-- Iran court fines US $420m for 1980 terror attack
An Iranian court ordered the US government on Thursday to pay $420 million in compensation to victims of an abortive 1980 operation to free Americans held at the US Embassy, the judiciary said.
Shortly after Iranians toppled the shah during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and arrested more than 50 Americans, AFP reported.
In April 1980, Washington attempted to free the Americans in the top-secret Operation Eagle Claw, which ended in disaster after running into sandstorms and mechanical problems. As the rescue force withdrew, two US aircraft collided, killing eight servicemen. In its Thursday report, the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency said that during the operation US forces had “attacked” a bus carrying Iranian passengers.
“Following the complaint filed by families of the victims of US Operation Eagle Claw, a court ordered the US government to pay $420 million,” Mizan reported.
Thirteen survivors of the terror attack as well as one of the hostages who was taken by the US forces in the desert filed a lawsuit against the US government.
The court ruled that the US government must pay $140 million for the “material and moral” damage it caused the plaintiffs and $280 million in “punitive damages”.
Five months after the crisis, Washington severed diplomatic relations and imposed an embargo on Tehran.
The Americans were released in January 1981.
In August, a Tehran court ordered the US government to pay $330 million in damages for “planning a coup” in 1980 against the Islamic Republic. The suits filed against Washington in Iranian courts follow a series of multi-billion dollar compensation awards made against Tehran by US courts. In 2016, the US Supreme Court ordered that Iranian assets frozen in the United States should be paid to victims of attacks Washington has blamed on Tehran, including the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut and a 1996 blast in Saudi Arabia.
In March this year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Washington’s freezing of funds belonging to several Iranian individuals and companies was “manifestly unreasonable”.
-- Israel’s war exposes West’s hatred of Palestinians
The ongoing Palestinian-Israeli war has galvanised massive Western support for Israeli Jews coupled with genocidal calls to “finish” off the Palestinians from across the Western political spectrum.
Indeed, even voices sympathetic to the Palestinians condemned the breakout against their Israeli prison guards on 7 October. They also rushed to adopt Israeli propaganda, including the outlandish claims of decapitated babies and rapes, which were later quietly retracted by the very same Western outlets like CNN and the Los Angeles Times that initially helped spread these fabrications.
This fanatical Western hatred of the Palestinians and adoration of Israel have shocked most Arabs, even those who already considered the West the main enemy of the Palestinian people. Over the last four decades, there has been a prevailing misconception by liberal and pro-Western Arab intellectuals, businesspeople, and political elites that Western liberals, and even some conservatives, had changed their views of Palestinians and become less hostile.
However, this change in the Western perception of Palestinians is limited to their being no more than victims of massacres. But this has not translated into Western support for their right to resist their sadistic colonisers, and any sympathy they receive always co-exists with the undying Western support for Israel regardless of how many Palestinians it kills.
While some Westerners may sympathise with Palestinians as victims of Israeli oppression, they do not sympathise with any form of resistance the Palestinians adopt.
The underlying convictions governing where Palestinians fit in Western morality are derived not from what Palestinians do or do not do, but from how they relate to European Jews. Whereas in the West, European Jews are depicted as refugees fleeing the Nazis and the subsequent horrors of post-Holocaust Europe, survivors of a war of annihilation, and victims of British commitments to the Arabs, Palestinians view European Jews from their own direct experiences.
For Palestinians, European Jews did not arrive as refugees but as invaders whose sole purpose was to appropriate Palestine by any possible means to realise Zionist colonial aspirations, which began half a century before the rise of Hitler to power. This is why Palestinians view European Jews not as helpless refugees, but as armed colonists committing massacres. It is this perspective that Edward Said wanted to convey in his classic essay “Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims”.
While much of Israel’s violence is therefore “explained” in the West by the pre-Israel status of European Jews, Palestinian resistance is also viewed through the same status of those same Jews, and not through the history of the Zionist colonial conquest of the land of the Palestinians.
Israel’s actions are presented in the West as stemming from the status of those Jews who arrived on the shores of Palestine after fleeing the Nazi regime, only to be confronted by yet another violent “antisemitic” campaign, this time by Palestinian Arabs and Arabs from neighbouring countries intent on expelling them from their last and only haven. Thus, Israel’s violence, regrettable as it may be on occasion, is in effect viewed as always self-defensive in
nature.
In the same vein, Palestinian resistance, peaceful or violent, which has always been and remains in self-defence against foreign invading colonists, is explained as part of an “antisemitic” campaign against Jewish refugees rather than resistance to Zionist colonists. This means that while some Westerners may sympathise with Palestinians as victims of Israeli oppression, they do not sympathise with any form of resistance the Palestinians adopt that could succeed in overthrowing the Israeli colonial and racist regime.
The moment Palestinians did on 7 October, all the sympathy disappeared.
This is part of an opinion that first appeared on Middle East Eye.
KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL:
-- Iran FM: Israel Has Turned Region Into ‘Powder Keg’
Iran’s foreign minister said Friday Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip have turned the entire region into a “powder keg,” warning that “anything will be possible” if such atrocities continue. Hussein Amir-Abdollahian told American public radio NPR that the region can’t afford to stay silent as Israel keeps massacring women and children in the strip. He said Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups “have their finger on the trigger” and are ready to make their own decisions to act against the Israeli regime and its allies.
-- Russia, Iran Urge End to Israeli Atrocities in Gaza
Iran and Russia must utilize utmost capacities to put an immediate end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and dispatch humanitarian aid to the besieged territory, the Iranian deputy foreign minister for political affairs said here Friday. Ali Bagheri Kani told Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Venediktov that the Zionist regime continues its brutal attacks. The Russian security official said the U.S. is the root cause of the ongoing worrisome situation in Palestine. He said the U.S. seeks to cause crisis in the West Asia region by creating centers of tension.
-- U.S. Army Reservist At Large After Killing 18
Shocked and fearful Maine residents kept to their homes Friday as hundreds of heavily armed police and FBI agents searched intensely for Robert Card, an Army reservist who authorities say fatally shot 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in the worst mass killing in state history.
Much of Thursday’s search focused on a large property belonging to one of Card’s relatives in rural Bowdoin, where trucks and vans full of armed agents from the FBI and other agencies eventually surrounded a home on Thursday.
The Cards have lived in Bowdoin for generations, neighbors said, and various members of the Card family own hundreds of acres in the area.
“This is his stomping ground,” Richard Goddard, who lives on the road where the search took place, said of the suspect. “He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket.”
Authorities repeatedly yelled for Card and anyone else inside the home to surrender. But hours later, they left, with state police saying it was unclear whether the suspect had ever been at the location.
Authorities say Card, 40, who has firearms training, opened fire with at least one rifle at a bar and a bowling alley Wednesday in Lewiston, Maine’s second-largest city about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Bowdoin. The attack left 18 people dead and 13 wounded, three of whom were hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said.
The victims of the shootings include Bob Violette, 76, a retiree who was coaching a youth bowling league and was described as devoted, approachable and kind. Auburn City Councilor Leroy Walker told news outlets that his son, Joe, a manager at the bar and grill, died going after the shooter with a butcher knife. Peyton Brewer-Ross was a dedicated pipefitter at Bath Iron Works whose death leaves a gaping void in the lives of his partner, young daughter and friends, members of his union said.
“The people we lost were not just random league bowlers, they were people who contributed significantly to the development of our sport and our experience,” said Mark Fortier, who is also the manager of the Maine State U.S. Bowling Congress.
Authorities have not said how many guns were used or how they were obtained.
People stayed behind locked doors in cities as far as 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the scenes of the shootings. Schools in Lewiston and Portland, and public buildings in Portland, remained closed Friday. Bates College in Lewiston also canceled classes Friday and postponed the inauguration of the school’s first Black president.
April Stevens lives in the same neighborhood where one of the shootings took place. She turned on all her lights overnight and locked her doors. She knew someone killed at the bar and another person injured who needed surgery.
“We’re praying for everyone,” Stevens said through tears.
The attacks stunned a state of only 1.3 million people that has one of the country’s lowest homicide rates: 29 killings in all of 2022.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills promised to do whatever was needed to “hold whoever is responsible for this atrocity accountable.”
As authorities searched for Card, details about his recent behavior emerged. He underwent a mental health evaluation in mid-July after he began acting erratically while with his reserve regiment, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
A neighbor, Dave Letarte, said Card’s family let them deer hunt on their property and were kind, although Letarte said he noticed Card appeared to have mental problems for a while.
“People have problems, but you don’t expect them to go off the deep end like that,” Letarte said. “When we saw it on the news last night, I was shocked.”
Neighbors said the Cards owned the local sawmill, and that years ago a member of the Card family donated the land for a local church.
A telephone number listed for Card in public records was not in service. A woman who answered a phone number for one of Card’s relatives on Thursday afternoon said the family was helping the FBI. She didn’t give her name or additional details.
Eight murder warrants were issued for Card after authorities identified eight of the victims, and 10 more will likely be issued once the names of the rest of the dead are confirmed, police said.
Three of the 13 people wounded in the shootings were in critical condition and five were hospitalized but stable, Central Maine Medical Center officials said.
The attack started at Just-In-Time Recreation, where a children’s bowling league was taking place, just before 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Less than 15 minutes later, numerous 911 calls started coming in from Schemengees Bar and Grille a few miles away.
The search for Card covered both land and water. The Coast Guard sent out a patrol boat Thursday morning along the Kennebec River, but after hours of searching, they found “nothing out of the ordinary,” said Chief Petty Officer Ryan Smith, who is in charge of the Coast Guard’s Boothbay Harbor Station.
A car believed to belong to Card had been discovered by a boat launch in the town of Lisbon near the Androscoggin River, which connects to the Kennebec, and Card’s 15-foot (4.5-meter) boat remains unaccounted for, Smith said.
In many past U.S. mass shootings, the suspect was found — whether dead or alive — within minutes. But Card was still on the loose more than a full day after the shootings.
The shootings mark the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
-- Zionist Forces Flee After Brief Gaza Invasion
Israeli forces backed by warplanes and drones carried out a second ground incursion into Gaza in as many days and furiously pounded the Gaza City as the occupying regime threatened an all-out ground invasion of the besieged territory.
The next stage is a ground invasion that “will take a long time,” war minister Yoav Gallant told a small group of foreign reporters on Friday. Gallant said the ground invasion would include large forces, backed by airstrikes, and that it would be followed by a third phase of lower-intensity fighting.
The Palestinian death toll has soared past 7,300 as the Zionist regime has carried out waves of devastating airstrikes on buildings in Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry, which tracks the toll, released a detailed list of names and ID numbers on Thursday, to counter suggestions by U.S. President Joe Biden and others that it was inflating casualty figures.
The airstrikes have flattened entire neighborhoods, causing a level of death and destruction unseen in the last four wars between Israel and Hamas. More than a million people have fled their homes, with some heeding Israeli orders to evacuate to the south, but then targeted by the Zionist regime.
At least 7,326 Palestinians, including 3,038 children, have been martyred in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday.
An additional 110 people, including 30 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank and East Al-Quds.
Despite Israel’s continuing campaign of devastating airstrikes, rockets continue to damage areas as far away as Tel Aviv.
At least one rocket fired from Gaza hit a building in Tel Aviv on Friday, wounding three people, Israeli media have said. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Israeli tanks ventured into Gaza for a brief incursion overnight Wednesday, which the occupying regime of says was in preparation for the next phase of the war, but withdrew briskly.
Hamas said its fighters detected the Israeli soldiers and forced them to retreat and leave behind ammunition after an exchange of fire.
More than 1,400 Zionists have been killed in the war. Hamas is holding at least 229 captives inside Gaza, according to Israel.
Palestinian resistance fighters have fired thousands of rockets into Occupied Palestine since the war began.
Settlers in the occupied West Bank and other Zionists are arming themselves at the encouragement of the regime in the wake of the Oct. 7 operation, raising concerns the practice will escalate to more Israeli violence.
Four Palestinians died in an overnight raid in West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces assaulted Palestinian worshippers in occupied East Al-Quds and blocked them from accessing Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to local media.
Videos shared by Palestinian outlets showed Zionist forces preventing people from going through.
Israeli forces have heavily cracked down on Palestinians in Al-Quds since 7 October, erecting checkpoints, deploying heavily armed soldiers and arbitrarily stopping and beating young men.
Palestinian religious affairs officials in Al-Quds said only around 5,000 people attended Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, a significantly lower number than in normal circumstances.
As the plight of Palestinian civilians grows more desperate, the issue of humanitarian pauses or ceasefire agreements in the Hamas-run coastal enclave was to come before the 193-member UN General Assembly on Friday in a draft resolution submitted by Arab states calling for a ceasefire.
Unlike in the Security Council where resolutions on Gaza aid failed this week, no country holds a veto in the General Assembly. Resolutions are non-binding, but carry political weight.
At a UN meeting on Gaza on Thursday, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said 70 percent of those killed in Gaza were children and women.
“Is this the war some of you are defending? Can this war be defended? These are crimes. This is barbarism,” he said.
More than 613,000 people were estimated to have been made homeless by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and were being sheltered by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The same agency has said it may run out of fuel within days. Gaza’s sole power station shut down for lack of fuel days after the start of the war, and the occupying regime of Israel has barred all fuel deliveries.
“The siege means that food, water and fuel — basic commodities — are being used to collectively punish more than two million people, among them, a majority of children and women,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told reporters.
“What’s the point of bombarding an entire population ... half of whom are children?” said Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories. Albanese says Israel is not only committing war crimes against Palestinians, but also crimes against humanity.
Hamas on Friday denied the Israeli military’s claims that it uses the largest hospital in Gaza as a base, and warned that the Zionist regime was attempting to justify an attack on the facility.
“We categorically affirm the falsehood of the Israeli occupation’s story about the use of Al-Shifa Hospital for military purposes, or the presence of any Hamas leadership in it,” the group said in a statement.
“We call on the UN and Arab and Islamic countries to intervene immediately to stop the madness of bombing and destroying medical facilities,” it added.
Senior Hamas figure Izzat al-Rishq said the remarks by Israel were a “prelude” to targeting the hospital, which is currently sheltering around 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
“These lies represent a prelude to committing a new massacre against our people, which will be greater than the massacre of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital,” Rishq said.
-- U.S. Will Not be Spared From Fire If Gaza Genocide Continues
Iran’s Foreign Minster Hussein Amir-Abdollahian warned at the United Nations on Thursday that if the occupying regime of Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip doesn’t end, the United States will “not be spared from this fire.”
“I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome an expansion of the war in the region. But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire,” he told a meeting of the 193-member General Assembly on West Asia.
Hamas has told Iran that it was ready to release civilians, adding that the world should push for the release of 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, Amir-Abdollahian said.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran stands ready to play its part in this very important humanitarian endeavor, along with Qatar and Turkey. Naturally, the release of the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners is another necessity and responsibility of the global community,” he said.
The minister urged the U.S. “to work for peace and security, not war against people, children and women.”
Instead of sending rockets, tanks, and bombs to be used against Gaza, the Iranian minister said, Washington must stop supporting genocide.
Amir-Abdollahian said the U.S. is watching and supporting the killing of more than 7,000 civilians in less than three weeks by the Israeli regime in Gaza, adding the White House is clearly assisting the regime militarily, financially and politically.
“The genocide in Gaza must stop immediately. The forced displacement of the people of Gaza must stop immediately.”
Amir-Abdollahian said the Palestinian resistance has the right to self-defense, emphasizing that its large-scale attack against the occupying regime was a reaction to the continuation of the regime’s occupation and aggression against the Palestinians as well as its widespread crimes in recent months.
However, the U.S. and several European countries refer to the occupying and war criminal regime as an entity that has the right to self-defense, he said.
“It is certainly not possible to change the places of the killer and the victim by misusing certain expressions.”
Amir-Abdollahian said, “According to international law, as well as hundreds of resolutions approved by this very same Assembly, the entire land of Palestine is an occupied land, and, accordingly, the Israeli regime is recognized as an aggressor and an occupier.”
The Palestinian nation, like any other nation under occupation, has the “legitimate right to resist the occupation using all available methods, including armed struggle”, he said.
“Therefore, the recent hypocritical efforts to introduce the struggle of the Palestinian nation against the occupiers as terrorist actions will not mislead the free nations and the awakened minds around the world.”
On Friday, Amir-Abdollahian said the Zionist regime is committing a genocide in the Gaza Strip and the recent operation by the Palestinian resistance groups was a legitimate response under international law.
In his meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi on the sidelines of a plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Amir-Abdollahian touched on a draft resolution addressing Israeli crimes in Gaza and the need to stop the regime’s aggression.
“Such resolutions should include three basic elements; an immediate ceasefire, the need for continuous access to and delivery of humanitarian aid to the oppressed Palestinian people, and confronting forced migration,” he said.
Marsudi described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “miserable” and underlined the need to work together to stop the killing of the defenseless people of Gaza, the need to continue sending humanitarian aid to the besieged area and to stop the forced migration of Gaza residents.
The Indonesian foreign minister also termed the state of a hospital donated by her country in Gaza as “very worrying” due to the lack of medicine and medical facilities.
TEHRAN TIMES:
-- U.S. should stop backing Israeli ‘genocide’ in Gaza, Iran tells UN
Addressing the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian accused the U.S. of siding with the “occupying regime of Israel” in its relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip. He also said the resistance forces who are fighting to liberate their stolen lands are branded as “terrorists” but said the Israeli regime that has occupied the Palestinian lands is defending itself. The following is the full text of the top Iranian diplomat’s speech to the session. I thank Your Excellency for holding this special emergency meeting of the General Assembly to examine the recent developments in Palestine. * The world knows that the Islamic Republic of Iran plays the most constructive role in helping peace and security in West Asia and the whole world as well as fighting terrorism and ISIS. * It has been 18 days that we have been witness to the war crimes and genocide of the occupying Israeli regime in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine.
-- Names released of 7,028 Palestinians killed after Biden questions death toll
The Palestinian health ministry on Thursday released the names of 7,028 people killed by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip, a day after US President Joe Biden questioned the death toll since the war began on 7 October. Biden told reporters at the White House that he has «no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth” about the number of people killed by Israel so far. “I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” he added. In response, the health ministry published a 210-page report detailing the names, ages, genders, and ID numbers of every person killed in the enclave. The ministry said an English version of the report will be published soon. Health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said the US administration was “devoid of human standards, morals and basic human rights values” for “shamelessly” questioning the validity of the death toll. “We decided to go out and announce, with details and names, and in front of the entire world, the truth about the genocidal war committed by the Israeli occupation against our people,” he said.
-- American bases in Iraq and Syria are under the resistance’s fire
American military bases, Ain al-Assad in western Iraq and Al-Shadadi in northeast Syria, have come under attacks by the resistance groups. The Ain al-Assad air base was targeted by the resistance groups again on Friday. Iraqi resistance groups announced that the Ain al-Assad military base, that houses the American military personnel, was targeted once again, according to Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen news television channel. According to the report, the attack was carried out with a drone. Previously, the American base of Ain al-Assad in Iraq had been hit by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq. The Islamic Resistance of Iraq took responsibility for the operation by issuing a statement, saying the fighters of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq fired rockets at the American base in western Iraq. Informed sources reported the missile attack on the American military base in the Al-Shadadi area in northeastern Syria on Thursday, October 26.
-- Will the Zionist project work in Gaza?
The historical process of the Arab-Israeli conflict shows the Israeli regime has always excelled in turning crises into expansionist opportunities rather than peace. That allowed the occupation to accomplish its Zionist project, which is yet to be completed. The question is whether the regime will be able to take another step toward that mission today in Gaza? As soon as this regime declared war on the Gaza Strip, the United States, along with most Western European governments, rushed to declare their «absolute» and «unequivocal support» for all measures taken by their «ally» to achieve a decisive victory. These countries provided political and moral backing. The U.S. went further by providing financial support and shipping advanced weapons. The same governments were quick to endorse Israeli propaganda campaigns that Hamas is no different to Daesh and that Operation al-Aqsa Storm was no different from the September 11 attacks. The U.S. promoted the fake Israeli propaganda claiming that Hamas fighters had raped women and beheaded children.
NOURNEWS