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Middle East conflict

Iran’s president urges Israel to cease hostilities

Masoud Pezeshkian stressed that "Israel has violated all conceivable, and inconceivable, international agreements"

MOSCOW, October 11. /TASS/. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called upon Israel to stop the fighting in the Middle East and emphasized that the Israeli side is violating "all conceivable international agreements."

"I would like to say to Israel - stop, stop killing innocent people, stop bombing civilian homes, people who already have nothing. Israel has violated all conceivable, and inconceivable, international agreements. It has been doing this because it knows that the United States and the European Union are backing it," he commented on the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program, the excerpt of which was posted by journalist Pavel Zarubin on his Telegram channel.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian Hamas militants infiltrated the Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 250 hostages. Hamas said the attack was in response to the Israeli authorities' actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza and started carrying out strikes against it and parts of Lebanon and Syria, before launching a ground operation in Gaza.

On the evening of October 1, Iran launched a massive missile attack on Israel as a response for the killings of the key leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Tehran claimed that 90% of the missiles hit their intended targets, while Israel said that Iran only launched 180 missiles and most of them were intercepted.

The Israeli General Staff vowed to "choose the right moment" to surprise Iran with a counter-attack, while Khamenei, speaking Hebrew, warned that the attacks on Israel will only be expanded.

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