TEHRAN -- Thousands of people in the Iranian capital, Tehran, have staged a demonstration to express their support for the Palestinians and denounce the Israeli occupying regime’s latest military onslaught against the Gaza Strip.
The protesters gathered near Palestine Square in Tehran, where the Palestinian Embassy is located, carrying placards and flags of Palestine and the resistance movement.
They chanted slogans against the U.S., the Zionist regime and Britain and reiterated their support for the Palestinian people, who stood firm against Israel’s latest wave of deadly aerial assaults on the besieged Gaza.
Addressing the rally, Khalid Qaddoumi, the representative of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, said the Zionist enemy, which killed innocent civilians must be tried in international human rights courts and face due punishment.
He added that the Palestinians have a common fate and are determined to continue their fight against the occupying regime with the strategic goal of bringing about the occupying regime’s collapse, emphasizing that no party can sow discord among the Palestinian people.
The Hamas official said the Zionist enemy would never be able to undermine the Palestinians’ will, saying the regime would finally be expelled from the Palestinian lands.
Qaddoumi hailed the support of the Iranian people and officials for the oppressed Palestinian people in their fight against the Israeli regime’s occupation and atrocities.
In their final statement, the protesters said the decades-long resistance of Palestine in the face of the usurpers of Al-Quds has become more powerful thanks to unity among the Palestinian resistance groups.
In the recent Israeli war, the resistance movement fired more than 1,000 rockets and forced the Zionists to beg for a ceasefire, said the statement, adding that this shows the hit-and-run era has come to an end for the Zionists and their supporters.
It said the enhanced capacities and deterrence power of the Palestinian resistance has changed the equations and showed that the zealous and brave Palestinians wouldgive crushing responses to the slightest moves of the Israeli regime.
The occupying regime of Israel unleashed three days of military assaults on the blockaded Gaza Strip on Friday. It martyred 46 people, including 16 children, in air raids on the coastal enclave.
The Islamic Jihad movement responded by launching hundreds of rockets toward the occupied territories, sending Zionists in southern occupied territories including Tel Aviv into shelters.
A truce brokered by the Egyptian mediators between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza went into effect at 11:30 pm local time (2030 GMT) on Sunday, as the movement said it “reserves the right to respond to any Zionist aggression.”
In a Monday phone call with Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas, Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian lauded the Palestinian resistance’s “great achievement” in standing up to Israel’s massive assaults and forcing the regime into agreeing to a truce.
“That once again the resistance was able to withstand the Zionist regime’s full-scale military assault and forced them into agreeing to a truce and complying with the resistance’s conditions is a great achievement,” Amir-Abdollahian said.