TEHRAN (Tasnim) – All pro-Palestine Muslim nations should push hard to arm the occupied West Bank, former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force underlined.
The Islamic governments and supporters of the Palestinian people should do their utmost to arm the West Bank, and should arm not only the West Bank but also the areas occupied in 1948,” Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi told the Tasnim News Agency.
Former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi
He further described the idea proposed by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei as a “strategic scheme” and stressed that implementation of that plan will bring about major upheavals in Palestine.
On Wednesday, Ayatollah Khamenei described the armed resistance as the only way to confront the “destructive regime” of Israel, noting, “Based on these realities, we believe that the West Bank should also be armed like Gaza and those who are interested in Palestine’s destiny should act in this regard in order to relieve Palestinians’ distress.”
The leader has also described political support for the people of Gaza as a duty for all Muslim and non-Muslim nations.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi lauded the Iranian nation for their massive participation in the International Quds Day rallies in support of the innocent Palestinians who have been under Israeli attacks for the past 19 day, and urged the government to use this popular backup for supporting the people in Gaza.
Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi
“The government should use this huge capacity and popular backup for defending the oppressed people and pave the ground for supporting the oppressed Palestinians,” Naqdi told reporters in the Northern city of Gorgan on Saturday.
Israel has been pounding the blockaded Gaza for 19 consecutive days, killing at least 880 people and injuring more than 5,800 others.
An elementary school packed with hundreds of Palestinian evacuees seeking shelter under UN protection came under heavy Israeli fire Thursday, leaving 17 people dead and more than 200 wounded, including women, children and infants.
Millions of Iranians in the International Quds Day rallies condemned Israeli crimes against the oppressed Palestinian nation, specially in Gaza, and the silence shown by the international bodies and the western states over the Zionists’ massacre of the Gazans.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Hassan Firouzabadi condemned the Zionist regime’s crimes against Palestinians, and said Israel has no choice but accepting the conditions of the resistance front in the end.
Firouzabadi said Thursday that the truce conditions of the Palestinian Resistance must be heeded, and added that the Israeli leaders perpetrated crimes against humanity in Gaza on the eve of the International Qods Day by disproportionate bombardment of civilian targets deliberately to take heavy tolls on the Palestinians.
Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Hassan Firouzabadi
Noting that the Zionists are shocked by the power of the Palestinian Resistance movement, he said now, the Zionist regime has no other way but to accept the conditions set by the Palestinian Resistance.
The Palestinians have said the blockade on Gaza should be lifted. The arrests of Hamas supporters in the nearby West Bank should be stopped and those arrested by Israel should be released. They have also required Israel to honor its commitment to the 2012 agreement and said Tel Aviv has to stop attempts to undermine the Palestinians’ national reconciliation.
In relevant remarks on Sunday, Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi condemned the recent Israeli attacks on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and said Israel will be the main loser of the ongoing battle.
After the 33-day, 22-day and 8-day wars, we will soon witness another defeat of the Zionists,” Boroujerdi told reporters.
He noted that Israel has sustained heavy blows from the Palestinian resistance movement, and said, “The Iranian parliament is serious about supporting the people of Gaza and new steps will be taken in this regard in the future.”
The prominent Iranian legislator reiterated that the large number of rockets hitting Israel indicated the weakness of Israel’s iron dome.
Also, Brigadier General Seyed Mohammad Baqerzadeh, the head of Iran’s committee in charge of searching for those missing in action, revealed that the Zionist regime is hiding the corpses of those Israelis killed by the Palestinians’ retaliatory attacks on the occupied territories.
The Zionist regime’s casualties are gradually increasing and the regime has faced a new challenge for hiding the number of its casualties,” Baqerzadeh told FNA on Saturday.
He said that reports from the occupied territories said that the Zionist regime is seeking to transfer the corpses of those killed in the Palestinians’ attacks to unknown places in the deserts near Ashkoul and Tel Aviv and in the back of ambulances which go to the two cities’ hospitals at night.
Noting that the Zionist regime is building new cemeteries in the deserts, Baqerzadeh said that the regime has obliged all the Israeli hospitals to keep the corpses of all those killed in Palestinian attacks for some days to be buried in specified places by the security forces.
His remarks came as the Palestinians have launched some 1,250 rockets into Israel by now and the Israeli news sources have strictly been banned by the regime from announcing the number of the Israelis killed in the Palestinians’ missile attacks.
Israel has been pounding the blockaded Gaza for 18 consecutive days, killing at least 800 people and injuring more than 5,500 others.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Senior Military Aide to the Iranian Supreme Leader Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi called for targeting the Zionist regime’s security in different internal, regional, economic and political fields.
“The all-out security of the Zionist regime at the internal, regional and international levels should be targeted through weakening the morale, psychological, economic and political security of the regime and the costs of the US support for the regime should be increased,” Rahim Safavi said in the holy city of Mashhad on Friday, addressing demonstrators participating in the International Quds Day rally.
Excluding the Zionist regime’s economy from the regional and international economy and boycotting Israeli goods and trade exchanges with this fake regime can hit a strong blow at this regime,” he added.
Senior Military Aide to the Iranian Supreme Leader Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi
Millions of Iranian demonstrators in Tehran and other cities called for the approval more laws in all Muslim countries to impose a strict ban on Israeli goods and operation of the companies and institutions with direct or indirect ties or affiliation with Israel.
The demonstrators were carrying placards which read “Muslims! Boycott the Israeli Goods”.
The Iranian demonstrators also trampled on and set fire to Israeli flags during the International Quds Day rallies.
Millions of Iranians in the International Quds Day rallies condemned Israeli crimes against the oppressed Palestinian nation, specially in Gaza, and the silence shown by the international bodies and the western states over the Zionists’ massacre of the Gazans in the last 18 days.
The International Quds Day was started by the late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, in 1979 as a way of expressing solidarity with the Palestinians and underscoring importance of the holy Quds to Muslims.
International Quds Day is an annual event opposing Israel’s occupation of Beitul-Muqaddas and other Palestinian territories. Anti-Zionist rallies and demonstrations are held on the last Friday of Ramadan in Muslim and Arab as well as non-Muslim countries around the world.
During the rallies in Tehran and other Iranian cities, protesters shouted slogans in condemnation of Zionists’ crimes in the occupied territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The fasting people carrying placards chanted ‘Down with the US’ and ‘Down with the Israel’ and other anti-Zionist slogans.
They voiced the Iranian nation’s readiness to defend the Palestinian cause and remove the cancerous tumor, Israel, from the face of the world.
People also protested against the silence of the international bodies, specially the UN and the so-called advocates of human rights, over Israel’s barbaric crimes against the Palestinians, specially the Gaza Strip.
Israel has been pounding the blockaded Gaza for 18 consecutive days, killing at least 800 people and injuring more than 5,500 others.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami underlined Palestinians’ continued resistance against the Israeli aggressions, and said no secure place has remained for the Zionists.
“Today, no point in the occupied territories is secure for the Zionists and the 33-day, 22-day and 8-day wars have caused an epic of resistance and today the Palestinian resistance’s missiles are beyond the Zionists’ expectations,” Salami said addressing participants in Tehran’s Friday prayers and after the International Quds Day rallies.
Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami
He also predicted that the power balance will change to the benefit of the Muslim world soon in future.
Salami warned the Zionists of Muslims’ tough reaction and response to their crimes, and said, “We will chase you house by house and take revenge for every drop of our martyrs’ blood in Palestine and this is the start of the Muslim nations’ awakening for defeating you.”
In relevant remarks earlier today, Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi announced preparedness of his forces to fight against the Zionist regime in the Palestinian territories.
“At present, the Iranian Basijis are ready for Jihad in the Palestinian fronts and are waiting for the Supreme Leader’s order and are impatiently waiting for that moment,” Naqdi told reporters in North Khorassan province on the sidelines of his participation in the International Quds Day rallies on Friday.
Stressing that 40mln dedicated Muslims are ready to move to Quds, he said, “The Muslim nations no more suffice to the Quds Day rallies and see it as just a symbolic move” meaning that they want more action.
Naqdi underlined that Iran considers supporting and defending the defenseless Palestinian people as its responsibility.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh underscored the necessity for arming the Palestinians in the West Bank, saying that the move will speed up Israel’s annihilation.
“This is an important thought presented by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution (Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei) and it will accelerate the Zionists’ collapse,” Hajizadeh told FNA in Tehran on Friday while participating in the International Quds Day rallies.
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh
His remarks came after Ayatollah Khamenei strongly condemned the recent Israeli attacks on the Gaza people, and underlined that Palestinians should continue their armed struggle against Tel Aviv.
We believe the West Bank, too, should be armed just like Gaza and those who are interested in the fate of the Palestinians must work in this respect so that the pains and miseries of the Palestinian people will be decreased due to their mighty hands and the weakness of the Zionist enemy,” he underlined on Wednesday.
Hajizadeh also referred to the Palestinian resistance’s missile attacks on Gaza, and said, “The number of casualties that Israel itself declares and the destructions made show that the missiles are hitting their targets.”
He said that the number of Israeli casualties is far more than what is announced by Israel.
In relevant remarks on Saturday, Brigadier General Seyed Mohammad Baqerzadeh, the head of Iran’s committee in charge of searching for those missing in action, also said that the Zionist regime is hiding the corpses of those Israelis killed by the Palestinians’ retaliatory attacks on the occupied territories.
The Zionist regime’s casualties are gradually increasing and the regime has faced a new challenge for hiding the number of its casualties,” Baqerzadeh told FNA.
He said that reports from the occupied territories said that the Zionist regime is seeking to transfer the corpses of those killed in the Palestinians’ attacks to unknown places in the deserts near Ashkoul and Tel Aviv and in the back of ambulances which go to the two cities’ hospitals at night.
Noting that the Zionist regime is building new cemeteries in the deserts, Baqerzadeh said that the regime has obliged all the Israeli hospitals to keep the corpses of all those killed in Palestinian attacks for some days to be buried in specified places by the security forces.
His remarks came as the Palestinians have launched some 1,250 rockets into Israel by now and the Israeli news sources have strictly been banned by the regime from announcing the number of the Israelis killed in the Palestinians’ missile attacks.
Israel has been pounding the blockaded Gaza for 18 consecutive days, killing at least 825 people and injuring more than 5,500 others.
TEHRAN (FNA)– The International Quds Day rallies will be held in over 80 parts of the world on Friday to voice support for the defenseless Palestinian people and condemn the Zionist regime’s atrocities against them, Head of the Intifada and Quds Headquarters Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif said on Tuesday.
“The International Quds Day rallies will be held in 80 different parts of the world this year,” Sharif, who is also Head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Public Relations, told reporters in Tehran today.
Head of the Intifada and Quds Headquarters Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif
He also said that 770 Iranian cities will also witness people’s rallies in support of the Gaza people after the Friday prayers ceremonies.
Sharif stated that 3,300 Iranian and foreign reporters will cover the International Quds Day rallies in Iran on Friday, including 210 foreign photojournalists and reporters.
Israel has been pounding the blockaded Gaza for 15 consecutive days, killing at least 600 people and injuring more than 3,200 others.
The International Quds Day is an annual event opposing Israel’s occupation of Beitul-Muqaddas.
Anti-Zionist rallies and demonstrations are held every year on the last Friday of Ramadan in Muslim and Arab countries around the world, and specially in Iran.
The International Quds Day was started by the late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, in 1979 as a way of expressing solidarity with the Palestinians and underscoring importance of the holy Quds to Muslims.
Algemeiner– Iran has armed militants in Gaza with Fajr 5 missiles and Abadil drones to help fight Israel, according to Iran’s Javan daily, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to a translation by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, published on Monday.
MEMRI said that article was published in Farsi last Wednesday, and was one of several in the Iranian press that spoke to “Iran’s aspirations to regional hegemony” and written in protest “in the face of the passivity of the Arab rulers.”
Javan said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country in which a consensus on the Palestinian issue exists between the regime and its people. Together with popular support for the Palestinian fighters, the [Iranian] regime also provides important aid to the Palestinian fighters, including military weaponry… This measure by the Islamic Republic – arming the Palestinian groups – is carried out publicly, and not in secret, and has even been publicly emphasized by the leader [Khamenei].”
A political cartoon published by semi-official state news agency Fars to show how Arab leaders are being silenced and complicit in Israel’s retaliation against Hamas. Photo: Fars / MEMRI
Honestly, what reason does Iran have to conceal its comprehensive support for the defenseless Palestinian people? Undoubtedly, it [is a source of] great pride for Iran that the simplest Ababil drones, produced by the Islamic Republic [of Iran] and operated by the Hamas fighters, managed to turn the skies of the occupied territories [i.e., Israel] into the skies of [Hamas] and [even] hide from the [Israeli] regime’s expensive radars and air defense systems. [It is a source of great pride for Iran] that Fajr 5 missiles, which are planned and manufactured by the military industries of the Islamic Republic, are in the hands of the Hamas fighters, [to be used] as tools of defense.”
Javan noted that “18 months ago, during the previous war between Hamas and Israel, IRGC Commander Jafari announced proudly and clearly that the Islamic Republic had provided the oppressed people of Gaza with the technology to manufacture Fajr 5 missiles.”
The joke of the day is that the missiles of the Zionist regime’s Iron Dome system, which cost $25,000 [apiece], are unsuccessful in shooting down the Fajr 5 missiles, which cost [only] a few hundred dollars, and that [consequently] fear and dread prevail in the occupied territories [Israel] more than at any other time.”
Finally, it should be stated loud and clear that for the Islamic Republic of Iran, the defense of the ideal of Palestine will never be sullied by political games. As Khamenei said, Iran will not hesitate to express support for the oppressed Palestinian people.”
MEMRI also translated a similar screed published at Jomhourieslami.com on Sunday:
It is, therefore, necessary to continue the policy of struggle until Israel is eradicated from the region,” it said. “When Imam Khomeini firmly declared that Israel must be wiped off the world’s map, some may have had difficulty accepting this policy. Today, however, everyone understands that there is no alternative for this occupying regime other than this fate… Unfortunately, the Muslim and Arab governments… do nothing for the people of Gaza.”
MEMRI quoted Fars, the semi-official state news agency, as writing last week: “The people in Gaza should know… that we will not forget them, that we will always support them, that we view resistance and unity as the only way to confront the criminal Israel, and that we believe in God’s promise that truth will vanquish falsehood. With the grace of God, the annihilation of this malignant growth is imminent.”
MEMRI also published a series of political cartoons from the Iranian press that portrayed the alleged silence of Arab leaders implying that they were complicit in Israel’s retaliation against Hamas.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi called on the resistance groups in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon to sign a defense treaty to help and support each other in case of enemy attacks on any one of them.
“We ask the resistance forces in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon to endorse a defense pact so that an attack on any of them will be an attack on all of them and if the Zionist regime makes an aggression against any of them, all of them will grow united to confront it,” Naqdi said, addressing a gathering in Tehran on Monday night.
Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi
He also warned the Zionist regime that Muslims will not sit idly to witness aggression against their brothers in Gaza, “rather they will certainly show a firm and serious reaction”.
Naqdi underlined the Iranian nation and government’s support for the Palestinians, and said, “The Islamic Republic has and will always be beside the Palestinian nation.”
In relevant remarks on Monday, Hezbollah Secretary General Seyed Hassan Nasrallah praised the steadfastness of Palestinian resistance fighters, and vowed to stand by the resistance and people of Gaza.
In a phone talk with Hamas Chief Khaled Mashaal, Seyed Nasrallah said Hezbollah and the Lebanese resistance will support the Palestinian Intifada and resistance, with all their hearts, willpower, hope and destiny.
His praised the persistence of the Hamas resistance and the tremendous patience of the people of Gaza and strongly supported their rightful demands to end the current battle.
Mashaal, for his part, reassured that Hamas resistance was ready to make a second victory in July.
Seyed Nasrallah also contacted the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, where they discussed the developments on the battleground in Gaza, including field conditions and political advances.
They warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if he is relying on governmental and international support in the Gaza offensive, the resistance in Gaza is relying on the strongest popular support ever.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan deplored the savage aggression of Gaza by the Zionist regime, and said Israel is facing an existential crisis after its failures in the November 2012 war against Hamas.
“The Zionist regime’s aggression against Gaza again despite its unsuccessful experience and humiliating defeat in the 8-day war (November 2012) indicates the regime is existentially in crisis,” Dehqan said, addressing the defense ministry’s personnel in Tehran on Tuesday.
He said that the attacks also show the Zionist regime’s desperate and paralyzed conditions in its confrontation against the resistance front and its evil plot for destroying the resistance’s strategic power in the occupied territories.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan
Dehqan called on all Muslims and freedom-seeking nations across the world to defend the Palestinian nation at least by massive participation in the International Quds Day rallies to be held on Friday.
Israel triggered an 8-day fighting by assassinating the military chief of the ruling Hamas group on November 14, 2012, followed by dozens of airstrikes on Gaza.
In response, Palestinian groups fired over 1,500 missiles and rockets at Israel.
Palestinian resistance groups targeted Tel Aviv and areas near Jerusalem for the first time in the history of confrontations between the two sides, launching a rocket attack in a major escalation of hostilities as Israel pressed forward with relentless airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
Israel called up thousands of reservists and massed troops along the border with Gaza, signaling a ground invasion of the densely populated seaside strip could be imminent.
But the attack on the Israeli settlement, along with an earlier strike on Zionists’ capital Tel Aviv, frightened the Israeli regime, making it drop its aggression plans and ask for third party mediation.
Eventually, a Cairo-mediated ceasefire agreement, which took effect on November 21, 2012, ended the Israeli attacks, which killed more than 165 Palestinians and injured about 1,269 others.
