TEHRAN – As Israel is planning to annex parts of the West Bank, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has issued a series of tweets urging Europe to “listen to the global conscience” and support the Palestinians.

“Since the illegitimate establishment of the Zionist regime, Europe has left behind #Palestinians & incurred painful costs on them. It’s high time Europe listen to the global conscience & take bold steps in defending the Palestinians agnst the Israeli atrocities. #Covid1948,” the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

In another tweet on Wednesday, the ministry said, “The Zionist regime was born through terror, and since then has assassinated thousands of people from ordinary #Palestinians to prominent Arab figures and Iranian scientists. A terrorist regime in nature, Israel still continues to sow seeds of chaos in our region. #Covid1948.”

It also said in another tweet that the Quds Day “is a yearly reminder to the Muslim world that the Israeli regime’s occupation and aggressive actions have been an underlying factor in conflicts in our region.”

Quds Day was initiated by the founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 to express solidarity with Palestinians whose land is being occupied by the Zionist settlers.

Quds Day is held at the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan. This year it falls on May 22.

‘Israel’s occupation source of crisis in West Asia’

Iran’s embassy in Croatia has issued a statement saying Israel’s occupation and expansionism are sources of the crisis in West Asia.

“Occupying lands of the Palestinian people and committing crimes against them by the Zionist regime are focal point of crisis and catastrophe in West Asia,” the statement said.

It also said, “In May 1948, Palestine witnessed one of the most painful events in history of Islam and the world. Since then, the Palestinian people are deprived of their right and peace.”

“72 years ago, the Zionists resorted to their racist ideology and violence and killed the Palestinian people, including women and children, or forced them to leave their homeland. Since then, West Asia is in crisis,” the statement noted.

In 1948, the Zionist regime forced 760,000 Palestinians out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab states as well as to many other countries in the world, and hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated and destroyed. The vast majority of Palestinian refugees, both those outside the 1949 armistice lines at the war’s conclusion and those internally displaced, were barred by Israel from returning to their homes or reclaiming their property. This dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian people is known to them as al-Nakba, meaning “catastrophe,” or “disaster.”

Nakba day, meaning ‘Day of the Catastrophe’, is observed on 15 May every year.

On the anniversary of the Nakba day, Iran’s Foreign Ministry tweeted, “Today is the Day of Catastrophe (or #NakbaDay) after the Zionists’ occupation of the lands of Palestinians, led to their mass exodus since 1948. The world must stand up for the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, as this long overdue right is recognized globally.”

The Foreign Ministry also issued a statement, calling on the international community to take effective action to support Palestinians’ struggles to liberate their land.

“During more than seven decades of occupation, the Zionist regime began its acts of aggression with war and crime against the real owners of this land and then continued this policy with building settlements (deep into occupied territories), displacing Palestinians, desecrating al-Aqsa Mosque, Judaizing al-Quds and the West Bank, continuing the blockade of Gaza, illegally annexing the occupied Golan (Heights) and attempting to grab major parts of the West Bank,” said the statement, according to the Tasnim news agency.

The statement expressed Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause, calling on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), governments, Islamic countries, and all freedom-seeking nations around the world to help end Israeli occupation and aggression and restore the Palestinian people’s rights.

NA/PA