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TEHRAN — Iran’s Defence Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan has censured Muslim countries for remaining tight-lipped in the face of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians as Tel Aviv steps up fatal air raids on the besieged Gaza strip.The minister pointed to Israel’s escalating airstrikes targeting the Gaza Strip, saying the Tel Aviv regime was cashing in on the chaotic situation in the Middle East to commit crimes against Palestinians. The silence of Muslim countries on Israel’s aggression, occupation and massacre of Palestinians would embolden the Zionist regime to intensify such acts of violence, he said.
The Iranian defence chief said that it was surprising how the countries that claim to be human rights advocates support the Israeli regime’s inhumane crimes. The Israeli regime along with the ISIL Takfiri group have launched a coordinated campaign against Palestinians, Syrians and Iraqis and seek to push the Middle East towards a deep crisis by waging war and committing massacres, he said.
However, Dehqan said that the Palestinian nation’s resistance would eventually lead to the humiliating defeat of Israel. A total of 173 Palestinians have so far been killed and at least over 1,200 others injured since the Israeli military began a fresh wave of aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip last Tuesday.
Over the past days, people in Iran, Turkey, the US, Jordan, Tunisia, France, Indonesia, Britain, Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan have staged numerous protest rallies to condemn Israeli crimes, calling for an immediate end to the deadly airstrikes.
Meanwhile, the Arab League has called on the international community to end Israeli air strikes on Gaza and to protect Palestinians, ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting which was to be held later yesterday.
The call, in a report to be submitted to the ministerial meeting, comes as Israel pressed its campaign of punishing raids on Gaza into a seventh day, and the Palestinian death toll rose to 172, with another 1,230 wounded.
The Arab League “affirmed the necessity of urgent steps for an immediate end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza and providing protection for the Palestinians”, the report said.
Israeli “air strikes on Gaza have become a matter that cannot be met with silence any more”, it said.
The pan-Arab organisation “demands that the international community intervene through its legal and humanitarian institutions to protect the Palestinian people”.
The call echoes a demand by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is based.
The Israeli campaign was launched in response to rocket fire from Gaza.
So far, no Israelis have been killed since the operation began on July 8, despite 777 rockets hitting Israel and more then 200 others intercepted, the army says.
The Arab League meeting comes amid intense international efforts to broker a truce, and with Abbas seeking UN intervention.
The Arab response has been lacklustre compared with its reaction to an eight-day war in 2012, when it sent Arab ministers to visit the besieged enclave in a show of support.
An Egyptian foreign ministry statement said yesterday’s meeting, which was been scheduled to begin at 1900 GMT, “is aimed at finding a solution to stop the shedding of Palestinian civilians’ blood and to formulate a common Arab stance on the issue”.
So far, efforts to secure a ceasefire have been unsuccessful, with Cairo taking more hands-off approach than in 2012, when it brokered an end to the eight-day war.
Ties between Cairo and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, have worsened since Egypt’s military ousted president Mohamed Morsi last July.
Morsi belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an affiliate. After removing Morsi, Egypt’s military-installed authorities designated the Brotherhood a “terrorist” organisation. — dailytimes.com.pk-AFP.
Online Reporter