GENEVA (Reuters) -Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Tuesday that Israel and the United States will never be able to wipe out Hamas and that Israel could only secure the release of hostages held in Gaza with a political solution to the conflict.
In a speech at the United Nations in Geneva in which he described the Islamist group as a freedom movement, Amirabdollahian said: “Israel and the United States will never be able to eliminate Hamas.”
He added that Israel, which has vowed to wipe out Tehran-backed Hamas, could only achieve the return of hostages taken by Hamas during a deadly rampage on Oct. 7 by a political solution.
Amirabdollahian was speaking at a meeting alongside counterparts from other Middle Eastern countries.
“All the ministers agree that the strikes by the criminal Israeli regime and the genocide it is committing has to stop immediately,” Amirabdollahian said following the meeting.
“The Rafah border crossing has to be open, humanitarian aid has to reach every part of Gaza and the forced displacement of the people of Gaza must stop,” he added, referring to the crossing into Egypt used to bring humanitarian aid into the enclave.
Israel mounted its assault on Gaza in response to a cross-border raid by Hamas fighters in which they killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage in southern Israel on Oct. 7. More than 100 hostages were freed during a short-lived truce last month.
Israel’s assault on Gaza to root out Hamas has killed at least 18,205 Palestinians and wounded nearly 50,000 since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appealed last month to Muslim states with political ties with Israel to at least cut them for “a limited time”. He had previously called for an Islamic oil and food embargo on Israel.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Cécile Mantovani in Geneva, and Elwely Elwelly in Dubai; Editing by Rachel More and Nick Macfie)
