TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Sunday that the political and media commotion created against Iran by the United States are intended to “exonerate” the Zionist regime of Israel and Saudi Arabia for their brutality against Palestinian and Yemeni children.

For example, Kanaani said, just in 2022 the Israeli regime killed 47 Palestinian kids, inured 164, and arrested 750 others.

Saudi Arabia has been pounding Yemen since March 2015, mostly using U.S.-made weapons.

“With the backing of alleged advocates of human rights and silence of international organizations., 8000 kids were martyred and injured in war in Yemen and 750 kids detained, 47 martyred, 164 injured by Zionist regime in 2022,” Kanaani wrote on his twitter account.

“A goal of political and media pressure on Iran is to exonerate U.S.-allied criminals,” he insisted.

Kanaani was responding to U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan who has made unsubstantiated allegations against the Iranian government following the death of Kian Pirfalak, a 9-year-old boy, in Izeh, Khuzestan province.

Security forces said Kian Pirfalak was shot dead as militants on two motorbikes started a shooting spree against ordinary citizens and security forces in the city’s central market around sunset on Wednesday.

In the shooting spree, according to police, six more people were killed and ten other injured, including Kian’s father.