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11 ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR 2.11.2023 IRAN'S Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslim states to cease oil and food exports to Israel, demanding an end to its military cam- paign in the Gaza Strip, state media re- ported. "e bombings on Gaza must stop immediately … the path of oil and food exports to the Zionist regime should be stopped," Khamenei told a group of students in Tehran, according to Iranian state media. Israel has vowed to incapacitate Iran- backed Hamas, which rules Gaza, fol- lowing the Palestinian terrorist group's Oct. 7 invasion of the Jewish state and massacre of 1,400 people, mostly civil- ians. Hamas also kidnapped over 200 hostages and took them back to Gaza. Israel has responded with air strikes and limited ground incursions to tar- get Hamas in Gaza. Hamas-controlled Palestinian health authorities say thou- sands of people have been killed. e terrorist group notoriously uses civil- ians as human shields, placing its weap- ons and other military targets by civil- ian sites. Iran's clerical rulers have warned Isra- el of an escalation if it failed to end what they described as aggression against the Palestinians, with authorities indicating Tehran-backed proxies in the Middle East were ready to act. Backing the Palestinian cause has been a political pillar of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and a way in which its Shi'ite Muslim theocra- cy has fashioned Iran as a leader in the Muslim world. Khamenei, Iran's top authority, said the United States was complicit in Is- rael's "recent crimes against Palestini- ans." "e Islamic world should not forget that in the crucial issue of Gaza, those standing against the oppressed Pales- tinian nation were the United States, France, and Britain," Khamenei said to chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." Israel, which Tehran refuses to rec- ognize, has long accused Iran's clerical rulers of stoking violence by supplying arms to Hamas. Tehran says it gives moral and financial support to the group, which controls the Gaza Strip. "One of the shameless acts of the West is accusing Palestinian fighters of ter- rorism," Khamenei said. Iran's leader Khamenei urges Muslim countries to boycott Israel A senior Hamas official has vowed they will continue to attack Israel un- til the country is destroyed. Speaking to Memri, a research or- ganisation based in the US, Ghazi Hamad said: "We will repeat the Octo- ber 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated. "We are victims - everything we do is justified." He defended the organisation's go- rilla attacks that claimed over 1,400 Israeli lives on October 7 and which prompted the start of a full-scale in- vasion of the Gaza Strip. Ghazi declared: "Israel is a country that has no place on our (Palestine's) land." "That nation must go because it pos- es a military and political threat to the security of the Arab and Islamic coun- tries and must be destroyed." "There will be a second, third, and fourth because we have the will, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight," he continued. Ghazi stated that Hamas were will- ing to attack Israel as many times as deemed necessary. He references October 7 attack, as the Al-Aqsa mosque flood, which he states was only the first time. "Will there be a cost involved?," he questioned. "Indeed, and we're prepared to pay for it." "We are proud to sacrifice martyrs because we are known as a nation of martyrs," he stated. Ghazi stated that Hamas did not in- tend to harm civilians, but "complica- tions on the ground" hindered this. Speaking about the Supernova mu- sic festival in which over 260 people died, the Hamas official said: "There was a party in the area with (civilian) population. It was a large area, across 40km". Ghazi Hamad said Hamas will 'annihilate' Israel Hamas official issues sinister warning: 'We will do it again' Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

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