TEHRAN - Iran’s foreign minister on Thursday has likened the current situation in West Asia to a “powder keg” ready to explode, expressing hope for an end to Israel’s “war crimes” against the Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Hossein Amir Abdollahian made the remarks before leaving the Saudi port city of Jeddah, where he attended an OIC emergency meeting on Israel’s bloody bombardment of Gaza.

Amir Abdollahian said all the foreign ministers who participated in the session agreed on an immediate halt to Zionist regime’s war crimes.

The foreign ministers participating in the OIC meeting were also seriously concerned about the spillover of the war.

“The circumstances in the region resemble a powder keg with the possibility of being exploded or getting out of control. We hope to see an end to war crimes against the people of Gaza as soon as possible,” Amir Abdollahian said, according to Press TV.

The foreign minister also said in talks with his counterparts on the sidelines of the OIC meeting he had censured U.S. President Joe Biden for his visit to the region in support of Israel.

“In the bilateral meetings, there was serious criticism of U.S. President Biden; first of all, because a hospital in Gaza has been targeted by Zionist bombs and more than a thousand civilians, patients and medical staff have been martyred, but Biden visits the region in support of the warmonger and secondly, as put by one foreign minister, ‘Biden came and a dinosaur gave birth to a fly’ - where with all boasts of Democrats about human rights and humanitarian issues, he announced that they had arranged for 20 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza in the coming days,” he said.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance group Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupation regime.

The Tel Aviv regime has killed over 3,780 Palestinians, including at least 1,520 children and 1,000 women. Well over 12,400 Palestinians have been injured.

Israel has also blocked water, food, medicine and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal sliver into a humanitarian crisis.

The deadliest Israeli air strike was carried out on Tuesday night as the regime bombarded the Ahli Arab Hospital in the city of Gaza which resulted in the death of at least 500 civilians.

Amir Abdollahian went on to say that it is just an illusion if the Tel Aviv regime thinks that it can eliminate the Hamas resistance group.

"I would like to announce out loud that time is running out and if the warmongers think that they can remove the resistance and Hamas from Gaza, they are definitely bluffing.

"They used to make such a claim years ago about removing and disarming Hezbollah in Lebanon, but the world has witnessed that Hezbollah is in its strongest condition and position."

Referring to the Israeli carnage, Amir Abdollahian said the occupiers along with the White House have made a “ridiculous claim” by blaming the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for the attack on the hospital.

“The U.S. cannot whitewash Netanyahu’s image despite standing behind him to attribute this rare crime against Gaza patients to the resistance,” Iran’s foreign minister stated.

Speaking on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani denounced the bombardment of the hospital as a “savage war crime” and an instance of “genocide.”

“By perpetrating this bestial and appalling crime, the Zionist regime once again showed its ferocious and vicious nature to the entire people of the world,” Kanaani said.

“The regime proved that it does not show the least commitment to the principles and rules of international law that govern the wartime,” the spokesman stressed. 

On Wednesday, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s military chief, urged Muslim states to work together to stop Israel’s “insane genocide” in Gaza and to prepare the ground for the medical treatment of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, injured in Israeli relentless strikes.

In his address to the OIC foreign ministers on Wednesday, Amir Abdollahian said Islamic countries should impose sanctions against Israel, including an oil embargo, to punish the regime for its heinous crimes against Palestinian civilians.

The top Iranian diplomat also suggested that it’s time for certain Arab countries to sever their diplomatic ties with the regime. 

“Israel’s land-grabbing policy, expansion of illegal settlements, destruction of homes and massacre, detention and torture of Palestinians as well as its blockade on the besieged Gaza Strip which deprives people of food and water is nothing but a ‘crime against humanity’,” he asserted.