TEHRAN - Iran’s interim Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani on Tuesday said that Operation Al-Aqsa Storm has transformed the Palestinian and regional resistance into a global movement against Israel.
Bagheri Kani made the remarks at a ceremony to commemorate Ismail Haniyeh, the politburo chief of the Hamas resistance movement who was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
“The Palestinian resistance was able to spread in the whole world with its bravery, courage and self-sacrifice. Operation Al-Aqsa Storm changed many calculations and balances in the world. One of them was the transformation of Palestinian resistance into a global resistance,” Bagheri Kani said.
“Today, in all parts of the world, resistance is mentioned as an efficient solution, and therefore global resistance has become a political discourse in the political arena,” he added.
The top diplomat went on to say that the pure blood of martyr Haniyeh has made the Palestinian cause stronger in the world, stressing that global resistance has become an undeniable fact.
Haniyeh, who was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian, alongside other Axis of Resistance leaders, was martyred in an attack on July 31.
The terrorist act came amid the Tel Aviv regime’s October-present Gaza onslaught, which has so far claimed the lives of almost 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has warned Israel of a “harsh punishment,” saying Iran sees it as its duty to avenge the blood of Haniyeh.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Bagheri Kani called Israel a “cancerous tumor” established and backed by Western countries in the region to sow discord and war among Muslim countries.
“The Zionist regime is not an independent entity, but a cancerous tumor in the region, which is considered an extension of American and Western policy in the region,” he said. “They want to place an impure nucleus in a region where Muslim countries are present and create tension, discord and war among them.”
He further noted that, “Preserving the existence of the Zionist regime is a principle for the West, and the rest of their policies are based on this approach.”
The foreign minister of Italy Antonio Tajani, in a telephone conversation with the Iranian caretaker foreign minister, has stressed the need for constant interaction between Rome and Tehran on various issues, especially regional developments.
The Italian minister also emphasized the necessity of carrying out a new initiative agreed on by Qatar,
 Egypt and the U.S. for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Expressing concern about escalating tensions in the region, Tajani said Italy urges all parties to exercise restraint in order to stop the war and ensure a truce in Gaza.
For his part, Baqeri kani denounced the Israeli regime’s attempts to block efforts at stopping its crimes and genocide in Gaza.
“The Israeli regime’s attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s embassy in Damascus, its cowardly raid on a residential area in Beirut, and the assassination of an official guest of the Islamic Republic of Iran are clear examples of the Zionists’ efforts to spread the scope of the war to other countries in the region,” he added, the Foreign Ministry’s website reported.
Iran insists on its inherent and legitimate right to take reciprocal measures simultaneous with continuing efforts to stop the aggression against Gaza, Baqeri added, referring to Tehran’s response to Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh.