Iran Strongly Condemns Israeli Raid on Gaza Church

Tehran deplored an Israeli strike on a church in the Gaza Strip where displaced Palestinian people were sheltering, saying the assault, which reminds the Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) barbaric attacks, demonstrates another page of the Zionist regime’s history of crimes against humanity.

News ID: 84390

Date: 21 October 2023 - 14:03

The deadly raid is another “disgraceful” crime committed by the Zionist regime in the besieged enclave, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kana’ani wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday, referring to the previous Tel Aviv’s fatal strikes on Al-Ahli Hospital and many mosques, where people displaced by the Israeli aggression have sought sanctuary.

“It’s another black and disgraceful episode in a series of crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Zionist regime and its criminal political and military leaders,” the spokesperson added.

Kana’ani noted that such attacks prove that “the usurping Zionist regime doesn’t abide by any humanitarian, moral and religious values and principles as well as the international norms and regulations”.

The top diplomat also held Tel Aviv’s staunch supporters, the United States and some European countries, responsible for the crimes committed by the Israeli regime.

The human conscience and all religions slam the "horrific crime," he continued, stressing the "international responsibility" to document the crimes and bring the "Zionist criminals and their known supporters" to justice.

An Israeli air attack has killed and injured a “large number” of displaced people sheltering at the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza, according to the besieged Palestinian enclave’s interior ministry. Saint Porphyrius, built in about 1150, is the oldest church still in use in Gaza.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has also slammed the attack as the "latest crime of the occupying apartheid regime”.

"The savage act of the hated regime in aggression, desecration of divine religions, and attacks against historic and cultural heritage is like that of terrorist groups such as Daesh," he wrote on X on Friday.

Gaza has been hit by a relentless barrage of Israeli fire following an attack by the Hamas fighters on October 7, which Israel says killed at least 1,400 people. The group has announced it was in response to the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and Israeli settlers’ growing violence against Palestinians.

Israel’s military campaign since has killed at least 4,100 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported at least 30% of the housing sector in the Gaza Strip has been either destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, while hospitals are overwhelmed with patients.

Israel’s military has also ordered 1.1 million people living in Northern Gaza to evacuate their homes, amid signs it is set to ramp up its offensive.

The UN warned it is “impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences". The World Health Organization (WHO) has also cautioned that a mass evacuation of the Northern Gaza Strip would be "disastrous" for hospital patients, with hospitals in the South already at full capacity.

The OCHA also announced that the number of internally displaced persons in the Gaza Strip increased to 1.4mln people, and more than 544,000 individuals are now in emergency shelters "in increasingly dire conditions”.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, where some 2 million people live in an area of 140 square miles. It has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years. More than half of its population lives in poverty and is food insecure, with nearly 80% of its population relying on humanitarian assistance.

Human rights groups have stressed that depriving an occupied population of basic necessities is a war crime. Palestinian health officials have warned Gaza is rapidly running out of water and electricity, and the population faces severe shortages of food and medicine. They say hospitals in the besieged territory are under constant bombardment and facing imminent shutdown due to a lack of fuel.

Tehran says the history of the apartheid regime is full of assassinations, massacre, torture and killing of Palestinian kids, and described Tel Aviv regime's atrocities and massacre of Palestinian women and children as indicative of the destitute of Zionists. Iranian officials say the Tel Aviv regime has been struggling for more than 70 years to exit its identity crisis which has been mixed with genocide, plunder, forced displacement and scores of other inhumane moves.