President Rouhani:
Zionists, ISIL Derived From Same Origin
TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- President Hassan Rouhani has compared the occupying regime of Israel to the ISIL terrorists as two “tumors derived from the same origin”.
"Today, this festering Zionist tumor has opened once again and has turned the land of olives into destruction and blood and littered the land with the body parts of Palestinian children,” Rouhani said in an Eid al Fetr address to a gathering of senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats.
The Iranian president also compared the Zionist regime to the ISIL by calling it "a second festering tumor that murders people in the name of Islam”.
"Analysts say that both of these tumors derived from the same origin,” he added.
Meanwhile, Iran criticized Egypt for delays in issuing permits to bring in aid to Gaza and to transport wounded women and children out of the area for medical treatment.
Egypt's government has added its own border closure to an Israeli blockade of the narrow strip of territory, in effect cutting off all routes to residents who have spent three weeks under Zionist bombardment.
To get aid into Gaza, Iran has to fly it to Egypt and then take it across the Rafah border crossing. The only other option would be to go through Occupied Territories, unthinkable for Iran.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian said 100 tons of humanitarian aid had been waiting for days for Egypt's approval to be taken into Gaza.
"For the past days, we have been providing the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and their interest section in Tehran with information on shipment of humanitarian goods and the list of 57 severely wounded Palestinian women and children we have offered to bring here for medical treatment, but they have yet to issue a permit," he told the official news agency IRNA.
"This is unacceptable. We hope Egypt will live up to its Arab, Islamic and humanitarian responsibilities against Zionist crimes in Gaza," said Abdollahian, who visited Lebanon this week to discuss the war in Gaza with the government and with leaders of the Hezbollah group.
Since president Muhammad Mursi was ousted by the Egyptian army last July, Egypt has destroyed hundreds of border smuggling tunnels that were the lifeline of both Gaza and Hamas.
The move reinforced an Israeli blockade that has been in place since Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel and has fired thousands of rockets at it in the last three weeks, won Palestinian parliamentary polls in 2006.
Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif has been telephoning regional counterparts, including Egypt's Sameh Shokri on Sunday.
Relations have been sour between Tehran and Cairo since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the government in Cairo gave sanctuary to the deposed shah.
The Iranian president also compared the Zionist regime to the ISIL by calling it "a second festering tumor that murders people in the name of Islam”.
"Analysts say that both of these tumors derived from the same origin,” he added.
Meanwhile, Iran criticized Egypt for delays in issuing permits to bring in aid to Gaza and to transport wounded women and children out of the area for medical treatment.
Egypt's government has added its own border closure to an Israeli blockade of the narrow strip of territory, in effect cutting off all routes to residents who have spent three weeks under Zionist bombardment.
To get aid into Gaza, Iran has to fly it to Egypt and then take it across the Rafah border crossing. The only other option would be to go through Occupied Territories, unthinkable for Iran.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian said 100 tons of humanitarian aid had been waiting for days for Egypt's approval to be taken into Gaza.
"For the past days, we have been providing the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and their interest section in Tehran with information on shipment of humanitarian goods and the list of 57 severely wounded Palestinian women and children we have offered to bring here for medical treatment, but they have yet to issue a permit," he told the official news agency IRNA.
"This is unacceptable. We hope Egypt will live up to its Arab, Islamic and humanitarian responsibilities against Zionist crimes in Gaza," said Abdollahian, who visited Lebanon this week to discuss the war in Gaza with the government and with leaders of the Hezbollah group.
Since president Muhammad Mursi was ousted by the Egyptian army last July, Egypt has destroyed hundreds of border smuggling tunnels that were the lifeline of both Gaza and Hamas.
The move reinforced an Israeli blockade that has been in place since Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel and has fired thousands of rockets at it in the last three weeks, won Palestinian parliamentary polls in 2006.
Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif has been telephoning regional counterparts, including Egypt's Sameh Shokri on Sunday.
Relations have been sour between Tehran and Cairo since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the government in Cairo gave sanctuary to the deposed shah.