“The American administration too has ramped up the intensity of the war on Gaza with its all-out presence and support for the Zionist regime,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in Geneva on Wednesday, according to Press TV.
Amir-Abdollahian said the Israeli regime has, throughout the course of the war, been stonewalling Hamas’ “positive approaches” concerning the issue of the prisoners of war.
The foreign minister was referring to the Palestinian resistance movement’s release of several civilian prisoners, and its expression of readiness for exchanging more. The regime has, however, ruled out the prospect, pressing with its atrocities against Gaza.
Amir-Abdollahian considered Hamas and its fellow resistance groups to be “liberation movements” in the face of the occupier.
By launching the hugely-deadly war in response to the groups’ “legitimate” resistance operation, the Israeli regime has “egregiously violated the legal principles of proportion and discrimination.”
Amir-Abdollahian outlined the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic efforts to address humanitarian issues in Gaza, stressing that the Islamic Republic is opposed to expansion of the scope of the crisis across the region.
The ICRC chief, for her part, thanked the Islamic Republic for its trust in the committee and positive contribution to its missions.
She said the both sides are worried about the situation in Gaza, noting that the committee was trying to stay neutral in the conflict and perform its humanitarian duties.
Given the sensitivity of the situation, the ICRC was doing its utmost towards alleviation of the human suffering, Egger noted.
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 its decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.
According to the Gaza-based health ministry, 11,500 Palestinians, including 4,630 children and 3,130 women, have been killed and more than 29,000 others injured in the Israeli strikes so far.
The US, Israel’s biggest and oldest ally, has backed Tel Aviv’s ferocious attacks on the Palestinian territory as an instance of “self-defense,” and has provided the regime with thousands of arms consignments since the onset of the war.
Washington has also been casting its veto against the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions that would call on the occupying regime to cease its aggression.
‘Israel insists on committing war crimes’
Also on Wednesday, the Iranian foreign minister addressed a gathering of United Nations officials and humanitarian organizations’ chiefs in the Swiss city concerning the ongoing developments across Palestine.
The top diplomat noted that the explosive power of the bombs and explosives that the Israeli regime has so far deployed in Gaza were three times that of the nuclear bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
“The occupying regime insists on grossly violating international humanitarian law and committing war crimes, genocide, and crime against humanity,” he said.
“Inattention to the Israeli regime’s continual, obvious, and intense violations of the humanitarian rights delivers an irreparable blow to the principle of the rule of law and credibility of the international laws.”
Amir-Abdollahian called for firm commitment to ensuring compliance with the Geneva Conventions and preventing a full-scale genocide.
Iran’s foreign minister noted that, “We should now allow an occupying and apartheid entity to challenge and mock the dignity and credibility of international systems in humanitarian rights.”
MNA
