Millions of Iranians marched through streets Friday in annual Qods Day rallies to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemn heightened Israeli violence in the occupied territories. According to IRNA, President Mohammad Khatami joined demonstrators in Tehran to mark the day which was first called by the founder of the Islamic Revolution late Imam Khomeini in 1980.
"Death to Israel" and "Death to America", the demonstrators chanted in Tehran. "Oh, Muslims; Unite! Unite!". Some of them carried placards, reading "Palestine belongs to Palestinians" and "Zionist terrorism is condemned.”
Religious minorities, including Jews and Christians, were reported to have participated in the rallies throughout Iran.
Iranian Jewish MP Maurice Motemed had earlier pledged that his coreligionists would participate in the Qods Day demonstrations.
The newly-established Qods news agency QODSNA, which covers issues of Palestine, cited Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi as saying Thursday that the international community had to take up a new approach toward the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, since the old methods were too obsolete to tackle existing problems.
He urged the world to mobilize their efforts for the establishment of "just peace" in the occupied Palestinian lands amid a worrying escalation of the Middle East crisis in the wake of the Israeli military blitz.
Meanwhile, Expediency Council (EC) Chairman Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani said Friday that the global arrogance, led by the US and UK, are responsible for the crimes Israel has been committing worldwide over the past half a century. Rafsanjani told large groups of worshipers at Tehran University campus at Friday Prayers congregation on the World Qods Day, that the UN and some other segments of the arrogant world have been supporting the Israeli crimes. (albawaba.com)
