President Rouhani:

Regional Countries Looking at Iran for Help

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday lashed out at Israel after the Zionist regime resumed pounding the besieged Gaza Strip, saying Tel Aviv is a murderous regime.

Date: 20 August 2014 - 21:41

News ID: ۴۱۰۹

Rouhani also warned against the existing instability across the Middle East, including Takfiri ISIL’s crimes in Iraq, and noted, "The Syrian people have lost their homes and the murderers (have now) targeted the oppressed Palestinians and Gazans with their bombs and missile fire.”
"Today in Iraq, the oppressed people are put to the sword of murderers who, unfortunately, claim deviously to (be promoting) Islam, but in practice they are mercenaries of the Zionists and have made millions of Iraqis, including Kurds, Sunnis and Shias homeless,” said Rouhani addressing the gathering of people in the northwestern Iranian city of Ardebil.
"Today the people of Iraq, Syria and Palestine are turning their eyes to the brave Iranian nation for assistance. Therefore, we should maintain our unity and solidarity,” Rouhani pointed out.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani pointed to the partial suspension of the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran after Tehran signed an interim nuclear deal with the Sextet of world powers in November 2013 and noted, "More steps should be taken for the lifting of the sanctions.”
Rouhani reaffirmed Iran’s determination to maintain friendly interaction with the global community, but noted that the Iranian nation will stand firmly against any government seeking to impinge on its rights.
The president also pledged that his administration will both preserve the nation's nuclear rights and bring back welfare to the lives of the Iranian people.
Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza Wednesday as furious mourners buried the wife and child of Hamas's top military commander, clamoring for revenge as eight days of calm exploded into bloodshed.
Muhammad Deif himself, who has topped the occupying regime’s most wanted list for more than a decade, escaped the strike, which pulverized a building in Gaza City late on Tuesday and remained in command, Hamas said.
At least 18 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Zionist regime’s F16 fighter jets have launched airstrikes on the besieged enclave, Palestinian medics say.
The bloodshed pushed the Palestinian death toll to more than 2,030, mostly civilians, since July 8 when Israel and Hamas started their bloodiest confrontation since the second intifada or uprising (2000-2005).
Another 67 people, almost all soldiers, have died on the Israeli side.
The UN says around three-quarters of the victims in Gaza have been civilians.
Egyptian mediators scrambled for weeks to push the warring sides to agree a decisive end to the bloodshed, but their latest attempts collapsed on Tuesday when the fighting resumed.
Several thousand angry mourners joined the funeral procession for Deif's 27-year-old wife and seven-month-old son in the Jabaliya refugee camp, shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) and demanding revenge.
Deif heads Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which vowed to open the "gates of hell" on Israel in retaliation for the killings.
Hamas said Deif was alive and still calling the shots in the conflict with the occupying regime of Israel.
"Those living around the Gaza border will not return home until Muhammad Deif decides," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.
Firing Kalashnikovs into the air, they carried the bodies of Widad and her son Ali, who were among at least four people killed in the first deadly strike since August 10.
Their bodies were wrapped in green Hamas flags and they were carried to the cemetery with the bodies of two men killed in a strike on a motorcycle.
"I'm like all the other people in the Gaza Strip. I am no different from the others who have lost children," said Widad's angry father, Mustafa Harb Asfura, 56.
"My daughter knew she would die a martyr when she decided to marry Muhammad Deif. Every moment since then I've been expecting to hear that she has died," he said.
Grief-stricken, Asfura carried his tiny grandson from the family's small home for prayers at the mosque, his body wrapped in a white sheet exposing his white face with bruising around the eyes.
In Occupied Palestine, Zionist interior minister Gideon Saar justified the attack, calling Deif -- who has escaped five previous assassination attempts -- a legitimate target.
Among the 18 killed since the truce collapsed were a heavily-pregnant woman and three children in the central town of Deir al-Balah, said emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra.
That number includes the woman's unborn baby, whom medics tried but ultimately failed to save, he said.
An army spokeswoman said Gaza fighters fired 137 rockets, of which 94 hit targets in southern and central Occupied Palestine.
The army had hit 92 targets across Gaza, she added.
Following Israel's deadly airstrike, Hamas fired 50 rockets over the fence targeting Jerusalem Al-Quds, Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport, the group said,
The army confirmed a rocket hit an open area of metropolitan Tel Aviv and another struck empty ground in the occupied West Bank, just outside Jerusalem Al-Quds.