In a statement released on the eve of International Quds Day, Iran's Foreign Ministry “vehemently condemned the Zionist regime’s blatant violation of international law and regulations, human rights, and international humanitarian law” in the war-torn Gaza Strip since October 7.
“The Government and the noble people of the Islamic Republic of Iran once again remind the international community and world governments, especially of Muslim countries, of their responsibility to provide all-out support for the oppressed Palestinian people, particularly the besieged inhabitants and war-stricken people of the Gaza Strip,” it added.
International Quds Day was designated by Imam Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic. It is marked annually across the world on the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. This year, the event falls on April 5.
The ministry further called for “effective, decisive, and immediate action by governments and international legal and human rights institutions to stop these crimes and to lodge a criminal case for prosecuting and trying the commanders, perpetrators, and supporters of such human tragedies.”
International Quds Day in the current year comes amid the ongoing brutal war against inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Since October 7 last year, Israel has killed more than 32,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 75,500 others in Gaza since October 7.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the Israeli military has so far killed more than 14,400 children in Gaza, meaning children make up more than one-third of the people Israel has killed in the territory.
“Hundreds of millions of justice-seeking and conscientious people” across the globe, and even in the Western cities, “will raise louder than ever before the cry of innocence and courage and anti-oppressiveness of the heroic Palestinian nation and the truth and reality of what is transpiring in the Palestinian territory on this year's International Quds Day as they demand the liberation of Palestine from the yoke of oppression, tyranny, occupation, and genocide, not only as the ‘first issue’ of the World of Islam, but as the issue of the world of humanity and the most flagrant example of gross violation of human rights and international laws and regulations,” the statement further said.
Israel has cut off fuel, electricity, food and water to the Palestinians living in the coastal territory. It is also deliberately starving the people in Gaza by destroying food supplies and severely restricting the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian goods.
Last year, tens of thousands of Iranians took part in the annual International Quds Day rallies in the capital, Tehran, in a major show of support for Palestine. Similar marches and events happened in more than 900 cities and villages nationwide, according to officials.
On the eve of this International Quds Day, Iran’s foreign ministry “emphasizes the continuation of the principled and constant policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in supporting the liberation struggles and legitimate resistance of the Palestinian nation and the necessity of effective, comprehensive, and deterrent counteraction against the crimes of the occupying and child-killing Zionist regime."
It also "calls on all Muslim governments and nations and the freedom- and truth-seekers of the world to stand in unity and solidarity so as to confront this ‘cancerous tumor’ and disruptor of regional and international stability and security and to provide real and practical aid and support to the oppressed Palestinian people.”
In conclusion, the ministry called on the international and human rights organizations and institutions to keep in mind their legal duties in supporting the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people “in ending the occupation, stopping the brutal crimes of the Zionists in the Holy al-Quds and other occupied regions in Palestine, and in putting an end to the aggressive and escalating actions of the Zionists in the region.”