Abbas Araghchi, Iranian foreign minister, called for more concrete collective action against Israel, asserting that mere verbal condemnations are no longer enough to prevent its “insatiable” Zionist ambitions to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and expand their occupation in the region.
Araghchi reiterated that the Israeli war in Gaza “is not merely a fleeting military conflict or an ordinary humanitarian crisis: it is a systematic, full fledged genocide explicitly intended to achieve ethnic cleansing amid the complicit silence of the US and the West more broadly.”
Citing the daily killing of Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid, Araghchi said that Israel has “turned hunger and famine into a new tool of genocide” and “food distribution centers into death traps for hungry women and children”, claiming that the war and genocide in Gaza is amongst the “darkest human tragedies of the modern era”.
Araghchi arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Monday, August 25.
Araghchi hoped that during the OIC meeting, attempts would be made to establish an international mechanism to “ensure the immediate and unconditional provision of food, medicine, and fuel to the besieged population”, calling it an “urgent moral and legal obligation”.
Similar assertions were made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei as well. While speaking during a religious ceremony on Sunday in Tehran, Khamenei said that only “standing [with Palestine] with words and condemnations is useless; rather we must act like the brave people of Yemen and ensure that all lifelines of aid to the Zionist regime are cut off.”
Greater Israel
Araghchi also warned Arab countries about Israel’s ambitions in the region. He emphasized that there is no limit to Israel’s “expansionist ambitions” and hoped that the OIC would recognize the fact.
He underlined the need to make the current meeting of the OIC a turning point in growing a “shared resolve” to build a global front “capable of standing against Israeli aggression”.
Speaking with one of the Israeli TV channels, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his full commitment to the idea of a “Greater Israel”, encompassing territories of six Arab countries apart from occupied Palestine.
Several Arab countries and the OIC have officially condemned Netanyahu’s comments, calling them a threat to regional peace and stability.
Araghchi maintained that Netanyahu’s comment was not an idle remark but that “Greater Israel” is a real Zionist project backed by the US and its Western allies. He pointed out how Israel is already pushing for the realization of this project with settlement expansion in the West Bank, genocide in Gaza, Judaization of Jerusalem, constantly violating ceasefire agreements in Lebanon, fueling strife to divide the Syrian people, and targeting infrastructure in Yemen.
Araghchi called for a “collective” move to block this Israeli ambition and establish peace in the region.
Meanwhile, Iran condemned the repeated Israeli attacks on Yemen’s civilian infrastructure and called them “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
Israel carried out multiple air raids on the capital, Sanaa, and other places in Yemen on Sunday, killing six people and wounding scores of others. The attacks targeted civilian infrastructure, including a power station in Sanaa, Al-Mayadeen reported.
The attacks on Yemen are “a clear sign of [Israel’s] hostility to the development and prosperity of the countries in the region,” said Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a press conference in Tehran.
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