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Iran’s Supreme Leader calls for Palestinian intifada against “cancerous” Israel

[ssba]

Iran’s Supreme Leader yesterday urged the Palestinians to pursue a violent uprising against Israel, which he termed a “cancerous tumour”.

Speaking at a conference in support of the Palestinians, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: “This cancerous tumour [Israel], since its start, has grown incrementally and its treatment must be incremental too.”

He added that “by Allah’s permission, we will see that this intifada will begin a very important chapter in the history of fighting and that it will inflict another defeat on that usurping regime”.

Khamenei went on to explain that “multiple intifadas and continuous resistance have succeeded in achieving very important incremental goals… It continues to advance towards its other objectives, ultimately the complete liberation of Palestine”.

He claimed that Palestinian “resistance” had formed a “fundamental obstacle” to Israel’s “master plan of… dominating the entire region,” which he said would otherwise be “violating other territories from Egypt to Jordan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf, etc”.

According to AFP, Khamenei was flanked by other Iranian leaders as he spoke, including President Hassan Rouhani, who is considered by many to be a relative moderate. The same report said that the conference was attended by representatives of 80 other countries, including parliamentary speakers from Algeria, Mali, North Korea, Lebanon and Syria, plus the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, Ramadan Shalah.

Khamenei’s comments follow recent tensions between Tehran and the United States. After Iran tested ballistic missiles, in violation of a United Nations’ Security Council resolution, Washington introduced new sanctions on Iranian individuals and groups involved in such testing.

Khamenei has a track record of incendiary rhetoric against Israel. In 2015, he threatened that Israel “will not see” the next 25 years.

Earlier this week, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah told Israel to “count to one million” before any attack in Lebanon. He threatened that in such a scenario, Hezbollah would act beyond any red lines and would attack both Haifa’s ammonia plant and Dimona’s nuclear reactor.