TEHRAN - Addressing the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian accused the U.S. of siding with the “occupying regime of Israel” in its relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip.

He also said the resistance forces who are fighting to liberate their stolen lands are branded as “terrorists” but say the Israeli regime that has occupied the Palestinian lands is defending itself.

“They call the Palestinian self-liberation movement, which has a right to self-defense, terrorists, but they refer to the occupying and war criminal regime [Israel], that is committing genocide in Gaza, as having the right to self-defense,” Amir Abdollahian lamented.

“The U.S. and several European countries are watching and supporting the killing of about 7,000 civilians in less than three weeks by the Israeli regime. They help this regime militarily and financially,” he said, according to Al Jazeera.

“We recommend that the U.S. works for peace and security, not war against women and children … and to stop sending rockets, tanks and bombs to be used against the people of Gaza. The U.S. should stop supporting genocide in Gaza and Palestine.”

U.S. President Joe Biden visited Tel Aviv on October 18 to express unwavering support for Israel in its relentless onslaught on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The night before his arrival in Tel Aviv, Israeli fighter jets exploded Al-Ahli al-Arabi in the city of Gaza killing 500 civilians, including the injured, medical staff, and citizens who had taken shelter there from the Israeli bombardments. 

The bombardment of the hospital prompted Arab leaders, including the Palestinian Authority president and the king of Jordan, to cancel a meeting with Biden in Egypt.

The U.S. has also aborted draft resolutions at the UN Security Council to halt the war.

The Israeli war on Gaza, which is home to over 2 million people, has been described as “genocide” and “war crime” in terms of international law. 

After the Biden visit to the occupied territories, the leaders of Germany, Britain and France have visited Israel to express their solidarity with the occupation regime of Israel.

The war started after the Hamas resistance group launched a surprise attack on portions of lands occupied by Israel in 1948 in retaliation to the regime's brutal attacks on the Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank.

“Ethnic cleansing”

Richard Falk, an international law scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years, has said the West's refusal to call for a ceasefire is a green light to Israel’s “ethnic cleansing”.

“By failing to advocate for a ceasefire, western states have given a green light to Israel’s agenda of collective punishment, which might itself be grotesque cover for the regime’s end goal of massive dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people,” Falk wrote in Middle East Eye on October 24.

UN chief says attack on Israel “did not happen in a vacuum”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the October 7 military operation against Israel “did not happen in a vacuum”, noting that the Palestinians “have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

The remarks by the world’s top diplomat angered Israel. The regime’s envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, called for the resignation of Guterres, saying Israel must rethink its relations with the world body.

“The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing,” Guterres said.

Following such remarks, the foreign minister of Israel also canceled his scheduled meeting with the UN chief.

Also, in a post on X, Guterres said: "The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the horrific attacks by Hamas. These horrendous attacks also cannot justify subjecting the entire Palestinian population to collective punishment."