TEHRAN – Millions of people in Iran and elsewhere took to the streets Friday to mark Al-Quds Day in solidarity with Palestinians at a time of ramped-up Israeli atrocities.
In the occupied territories, some 250,000 Muslim worshippers performed prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The rallies, an annual fixture since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, are held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“The Palestinians are actively confronting Israeli aggression from Gaza to the heart of Tel Aviv,” said parliament speaker Muhammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Recent weeks saw deadly attacks and clashes in Occupied Palestine, annexed East Al-Quds ad the occupied West Bank, as well as cross-border fire between Zionist forces and resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.
“Yesterday they (Palestinians) were fighting with stones, and now they hit (Israel) with rockets,” Ghalibaf said in a speech in the capital Tehran.
Rallies were held in Tehran and other major Iranian cities including Tabriz in the northwest, Hamedan in the west, Yazd in the centre, Bandar Abbas in the south and Abadan in the southwest, according to images broadcasted by national television.
“Death to Israel and to America,” protesters chanted, waving Palestinian and Iranian flags as well as those of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Some banners raised by demonstrators read “the destruction of Israel is near” and “Palestine is the axis of unity of the Muslim world”. Iran does not recognize Israel.
In central Tehran, protesters burnt U.S. and Israeli flags and images of the Zionist regime’ prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We have witnessed conspiracies by enemies in recent times,” Ghalibaf told the crowd in Tehran. “If it wasn’t for God’s grace and our nation’s intelligence... they would have had their dreams.”
“It shows we must act now with greater focus and try to eliminate our weak points,” he added, pointing specifically to Iran’s economy battered by years of sanctions.
“Today, the most important fight of all officials is against high costs, because it is a weak point exploited by the enemy,” Ghalibaf said.
In their final communiqué in Tehran, the demonstrators described unity and solidarity within the Muslim world as the key to triumph over global arrogant powers and their conspiracies
The Axis of Resistance, it said, has confounded Zionists and driven the corrupt and far-right administration of Netanyahu to despair. “The child-killing regime is experiencing gradual deterioration, political instability as well as severe bipolarity.”
“The unfolding developments across the Israeli-occupied territories and the reverse migration of Israeli settlers clearly show that the fake Zionist regime has reached an irreversible point of decline and is moving closer to collapse,” it said.
The protesters also underscored the need to reinforce support for the anti-Israel resistance front, saying it is the only viable solution to resolve the Palestinian issue as the first and foremost issue of the Muslim world.
The statement went on to emphasize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands from which they were expelled in 1948, and hold a free referendum to determine their future.
The demonstrators also condemned Israeli raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Palestinian worshipers, terming them as part of Tel Aviv’s attempts to escape from the political and economic turmoil it is currently suffering from.
The statement touched on a new intifada (uprising) in the making in the occupied West Bank, saying the Zionist regime is alarmed by the unity of Palestinian groups and the mass mobilization of young Palestinians to join resistance groups.
The participants also hailed retaliatory missile strikes by Palestinian resistance fighters, warning Israeli officials against committing any new blunder against Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“Any future desecration of the holy site would inflict a heavy price upon the Zionists, and a new military confrontation will accelerate the collapse and destruction of the racist and usurping Israeli regime,” they said.
The protesters finally condemned the silence and inaction of international institutions and human rights institutions toward “barbaric” Israeli crimes, urging the UN to suspend Israel’s membership and subsequently expel the “occupying, racist and child-killing Zionist regime” from the world body and other international bodies.

Ghalibaf said Israeli attempts to normalize ties with Muslims and force them to concede defeat have backfired, as Islam has achieved glory and dignity.
The Zionist regime, he added, made vain attempts to portray Iran and the resistance front as a threat to Muslim countries, but the conspiracy ended in abject failure.
Chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hussein Salami said Israel’s collapse is imminent as the regime faces several crises and “a new life” breathed into the Palestinian resistance.
“The Zionist regime has decayed and is close to collapse,” he told Quds Day rallies in Isfahan.
“The first sign of this regime’s decline is that there is no established political system inside the regime,” he said.
The regime is facing several major crises, including isolation in foreign policy, internal instability, domestic protests, and inefficient government, added the Iranian commander.
“A new life has been breathed into the Palestinian movement,” he said.
“Operations are carried out in the West Bank and Tel Aviv and a regime that has encircled itself with walls like an appalling garrison and is equipped with the most modern security systems that cannot prevent delivery of arms to West Bank and operations of Palestinian fighters.”
On the international front, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on the Islamic countries to form a united front in order to stop the Zionist regime’s criminal acts against Palestinians.
In a phone call with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the Iranian president expressed deep concern over the latest developments in the occupied territories, especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Sharif strongly condemned Israeli crimes, saying his country will remain a permanent supporter of the Palestinian people.