This handout picture provided by the Iranian Presidency on Nov. 11, 2023, shows Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi speaking prior to boarding an aircraft departing from Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport to Saudi Arabia to attend a summit. (Credit: Iranian Presidency/AFP)
Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi said Thursday that Israel had “achieved none of its objectives” in more than 40 days of war against Hamas.
“If we want to make an analysis after 40 days, it is because the enemy has been defeated,” declared Raisi in a speech, quoted by the official news agency, Irna. And with "the temporary ceasefire, we must say that the Palestinian people and the resistance have achieved a great victory."
Israel and Hamas announced a truce agreement providing for the release of 50 hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners and a four-day suspension of fighting. But this truce will not come into effect until Friday at the earliest, Israeli officials said Thursday against a backdrop of continuing fighting in the Gaza Strip.
After the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war on Oct. 7, "the Zionists announced that they were going to occupy Gaza and that they wanted to destroy the resistance, but they achieved neither of these objectives," added the Iranian president. He again accused "America and the West of having supported them with all their might."
“Today is a day of victory of honor over the devil and everyone can celebrate it,” concluded Mr. Raisi, whose country does not recognize the existence of Israel and supports Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.
Visiting Beirut, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met on Wednesday with the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau Khalil al-Hayya and the secretary general of Islamic Jihad Ziad al-Nakhala, according to the Irna agency. He warned of war spilling over if the truce was not lasting.
