We Have A Duty To Destroy Israel - Iranian Cleric
All the country’s resources should be at the disposal of the government to help Gaza and Palestine fight Israel, a firebrand senior cleric has said during Friday prayers.
All the country’s resources should be at the disposal of the government to help Gaza and Palestine fight Israel, a firebrand senior cleric has said during Friday prayers.
Ahmad Alamolhoda is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in one of the most important Shiite cities, Mashhad, where a revered imam is buried. He is also the father-in-law of Ebrahim Raisi, who was handpicked by Khamenei to become president in 2021, simply by barring all other serious candidates from running, in what turned out to be a selection rather than an election.
“As soon as the Supreme Leader commands, we should all rush to help Palestine and Gaza using all of the resources belonging to the regime and the people.”
“We have a duty to destroy Israel,” Alamolhoda said.
The hardline rhetoric comes amid rising tensions in the Middle East as the Hamas-Israel war rages on. This adds to the wave of incendiary remarks made by Iranian authorities in recent days warning Israel and its ally the United States of escalating tensions if attacks on Gaza don’t stop.
On Thursday, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian repeated the regime’s warning during an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly on the Israel-Hamas conflict in New York.
"I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome the expansion of the war in the region.”
“But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire,” said Abdollahian.
The measures target additional assets in a Hamas investment portfolio and people facilitating sanctions evasion by Hamas-affiliated companies, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.
A Gaza-based entity that Treasury said has served as a conduit for illicit Iranian funds to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group was also targeted, the department said. Iran backs Hamas and other militant groups in the Middle East.
"We will not hesitate to take action to further degrade Hamas’s ability to commit horrific terrorist attacks by relentlessly targeting its financial activities and streams of funding," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo wrote, adding the sanctions aimed "to deny Hamas the ability to exploit the international financial system."
Adeyemo said some firms in the digital asset space were not doing enough to stop the flow of illicit finance.
Israel has bombed Hamas targets in the densely populated Gaza Strip following the October 7 terror attack that killed 1,400 people. Hamas took more than 200 hostages, some of them infants, in the assault.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry said on Thursday that 7,028 Palestinians had been killed in Israel's retaliatory air strikes. The figure cannot be independently verified.
Friday's action freezes any US assets of the targeted groups and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Those that engage in certain transactions with them also risk being hit with sanctions.
The Treasury said it imposed sanctions on a Jordanian national who lives in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and who it said serves as the representative of Hamas in Iran, as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force (IRGC-QF) officials who train and assist members of Hamas and other militant groups.
An Iran-based commander of the Saberin Special Forces Brigade of the IRGC Ground Force was also targeted. The US Treasury said the Saberin Brigade has deployed to Syria and has provided training to Hamas and members of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
Hundreds of Iranian or Iran-linked individuals and companies are already under US sanctions for their illicit activities in the country’s nuclear, missile and terror-related activities.
Sudan and Spain-based companies were also targeted under Friday's measures, as were Turkey-based shareholders of a company previously designated as part of the Hamas investment portfolio.
The United States has said that the Hamas portfolio of investments, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, includes companies operating in Turkey, as well as Sudan, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.
This month's violence has led to fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East.
The US military on Thursday carried out strikes against two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and groups it backs following a spate of attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
However, Iranian and Iraqi media reported on Friday that two US bases came under attack in Syria and Iraq following the US retaliatory strike.
With reporting by Reuters
Tasnim news agency affiliated with the IRGC reported at midday local time that “six missiles were launched from the vicinity of Bu Kamal and al-Mayadeen” at the US base near the al-Omar oil fields. The website said in its headline that “American forces were caught by surprise.”
Later Tasnim also reported that the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq hosting US troops was hit by drones. Tasnim and Iraqi news websites reported that Islamic Jihad, a front of Iraqi Shiite forces loyal to Tehran, had issued a statement accepting responsibility.
There has been no confirmation by Iraq or the United States about the reported attacks.
If true, these fresh attacks would constitute a quick response by Iranian forces to a limited US retaliatory attack launched hours earlier at two reportedly unmanned weapons depots of the Revolutionary Guard near Bu Kamal.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed that its drones had achieved a “direct hit at the Ain- al-Assad airbase.
Tasnim said in its report about the attacks, “These attacks have taken place in response to the continuous crimes of the Israeli occupiers against the Palestinian people and the support of the United States for this regime.”
Iran’s armed proxy forces in Syria and Iraq have launched nearly 20 drone and rocket attacks against US bases in the two countries since the October 7 Hamas terror raid into Israel.
President Joe Biden and other US officials had been warning this week of retaliation if Iranian-affiliated forces continued targeting American forces. However, multiple and consecutive attacks remained unanswered until Thursday night.
Earlier, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had announced that US forces, at the direction of President Joe Biden, had launched strikes "targeting two facilities in eastern Syria used by the Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated forces."
Austin said the strikes were "a response to a series of ongoing attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed forces that began on Oct. 17."
Iran had not attacked US bases in the region for nearly a year before the October 7th Hamas invasion. Tehran was holding secret talks with Washington to free billions of dollars of its frozen funds. The Biden administration agreed to release at least $8.7 billion blocked in South Korea and Iraq since June in exchange for five American hostages held by Iran and reportedly an agreement to deescalate tensions. However, the Hamas attack on Israel have led to the possibility of a serious conflict in the region.
Iran fully backs Hamas and has threatened the United States that if the attack on Gaza does not stop, it can engulf US interests.
Iran’s foreign minister told the United Nations on Thursday that US forces in the Middle East will not be spared if the Israeli offensive against Hamas continues.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reiterated the regime’s warning during an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly on the Israel-Hamas conflict in New York. "I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome the expansion of the war in the region. But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire.”
