A senior Iranian cleric says before any truce between Palestinians and Israel, the Tel Aviv regime should end the siege of the Gaza Strip.
“If you (Israelis) want ceasefire, the Gaza blockade has to be lifted, [and] the Palestinian prisoners should be released. This is their legitimate right,” Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said in his sermon at the weekly Friday Prayers in Tehran.
The Iranian cleric added that all so-called peace plans are doomed to failure, adding that the Palestinians owe their “dignity” to “resistance and perseverance on their rights.”
“This [Israeli] regime should be annihilated. Its substitute should be a regime that would take shape in a referendum,” he said, adding, “Here is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s motto as the solution to the issue of Palestine: Every Palestinian, One Vote.”
Khatami also stated that the United States, Britain and Germany are supporting the Zionist regime’s “homicide and infanticide.”
On Friday, massive rallies were held across Iran on International Quds Day in another show of support for the oppressed Palestinian nation in the face of Israeli occupation and atrocities.
Demonstrators carried placards and chanted anti-Israel slogans, condemning the Zionist regime’s fresh bloody offensive against the besieged Gaza Strip amid the silence of the international community.
This year’s anti-Israel protests are being held as Israeli warplanes and tanks have been pounding numerous sites inside Gaza, killing innocent residents of the impoverished Palestinian enclave over the past 18 days.
More than 810 Palestinians have so far been killed and over 5,200 wounded since the Israeli military first launched its onslaught on the Palestinian enclave on July 8.
