Iran’s Leader Khamenei Urges Muslim Countries to Boycott Israel

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 campaign in the Gaza Strip, state media reported.

“The 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, following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of the Jewish state and massacre of 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Hamas also kidnapped over 200 hostages and took them back to Gaza.

Israel has responded with air strikes and limited ground incursions to target Hamas in Gaza. Hamas-controlled Palestinian health authorities say thousands of people have been killed. The terrorist group notoriously uses civilians as human shields, placing its weapons and other military targets by civilian sites.

Iran’s clerical rulers have warned Israel 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 theocracy has fashioned Iran as a leader in the Muslim world.

Khamenei, Iran’s top authority, said the United States was complicit in Israel‘s “recent crimes against Palestinians.”

“The Islamic world should not forget that in the crucial issue of Gaza, those standing against the oppressed Palestinian 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 recognize, 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 terrorism,” Khamenei said.

The post Iran’s Leader Khamenei Urges Muslim Countries to Boycott Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.