Iran’s highest-ranking military commander says Israel had better end its atrocious stop its atrocious hostilities in the besieged Gaza Strip and recognize a Palestinian referendum to lay the ground for peace in the territory.
“It serves the Zionists and the Israeli regime better to abandon the crimes [in Gaza],” Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri said at a military exhibition in Tehran on Saturday.
He said the Palestinian people, with a variety of religions and faiths, must be free to decide their own fate. “There will be no other avenue to peace and stability on this land.”
The Iranian general hailed the Palestinian fighters’ valor in the battle against Israeli forces, harboring the hope that the crimes of Israel in Gaza would soon come to an end.
Baqeri said the future of Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is “crystal clear.” Truth will definitely emerge victorious, he said.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Israel has killed nearly 17, 500 people, most of them women and children, in Gaza since. More than 46,000 people have been wounded as well.
On Friday, Washington used its veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block a draft resolution for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. 13 Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution, put forward by the United Arab Emirates. Britain abstained.
The vote came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres formally warned the 15-member Council of a global threat from the war.
