Iran blasts Israeli attack on Gaza church as horrific crime

In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Nasser Kan’ani said on Friday the attack is another “disgraceful” crime committed by the Israeli forces in Gaza, referring to the previous Israeli lethal strikes on al-Ahli al-Arabi 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,” Kan’ani said.

On Thursday, Israel bombed the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church where many Christians and Muslims had taken refuge amid intensified Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

According to reports, at least 16 people have been killed in the airstrike which the Israeli regime claims was meant to target a neighboring building. 

Kan’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 spokesman 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 said, stressing the "international responsibility" to document the crimes and bring the "Zionist criminals and their known supporters" to justice.

A crime like those committed by Daesh

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian 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 in a Friday. 

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Since the start of the Israeli aggression, more than 4,100 Palestinians have been killed.

Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.

The regime has further ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the coastal sliver.

However, it has continued to rain down bombs on the south, killing large numbers of Palestinians.

The United Nations says about half of the Palestinians in Gaza have been made homeless, still trapped inside the besieged strip.

The world body’s human rights office says Israel’s complete siege of Gaza, combined with the evacuation order, could amount to a forcible transfer of civilians, breaching international law.

MNA