RNA - Addressing people attending the Eid al-Adha (the Feast of Sacrifice) prayers in Tehran on Monday, Hojjatoleslam Aboutorabifard said, “Those who attacked our oppressed Palestinian brothers and sisters in Al-Aqsa mosque should know that the tyrant regimes are doomed to failure and destruction.”
Muslims traditionally celebrate Eid al-Adha, one of the most important religious feasts, with the sacrifice of animals such as sheep, rams, goats and cattle.
The act commemorates Prophet Abraham’s (peace be upon him) submission to divine order to sacrifice his son, Ismail. However, God provided Prophet Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead after he successfully passed the divine test.
Millions of Muslims around the world attend the day’s prayers. In Iran, people from different walks of life will go to mosques to participate in the day's special prayers. A mass prayer was also held in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
The senior cleric also blasted certain western countries for supporting terrorist groups in the region.
In late July, the United Nations for the third year put Saudi Arabia and its allies in their military campaign against Yemen on the world body's blacklist of child killers.
According to a report by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in 2018, the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen killed or injured 729 children, World News reported.
The UN chief's report, which was presented to the Security Council on Friday, also stated that Palestinian casualties caused by the Israeli regime, mainly its military, hit a four-year high in 2018.
The report shows that 59 Palestinian children were killed - 56 by Israeli forces - and another 2,756 were injured last year.
Guterres urged "Israel to immediately put in place preventive and protective measures to end the excessive use of force".
"I condemn the increasing number of child casualties, which are often a result of attacks in densely populated areas and against civilian objects, including schools and hospitals," Guterres stated in the report, produced by UN Children and Armed Conflict envoy Virginia Gamba and issued in Guterres' name.
Diplomats say Saudi Arabia and Israel both have exerted pressure in recent years in a bid to stay off the list, but no to avail.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah movement.
According to a December 2018 report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.
Save the Children, a charity, has reported that more than 84,700 children under the age of five may have starved to death in Yemen since the Saudi regime and a coalition of its allies launched the brutal war on the already-impoverished nation.
According to Fars News Agancy, France, the United States, the United Kingdom and some other Western countries have faced criticisms over arms sales to the Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose aggression against Yemen has affected 28 million people and caused what the United Nations calls “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world". According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.
The Great March of Return was launched in late March 2018 in an effort to shed light on the Palestinian refugees' right of return and pressure Israel to lift the 13-year-long blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Since the start of the border protests, the Israeli occupation army has killed more than 310 Palestinians and injured over 31,000 in the Gaza Strip.
A UN fact-finding mission has announced that Israeli forces committed rights violations during their crackdown against Palestinian demonstrators in the Gaza Strip last year that may amount to “war crimes”, urging the regime’s military to prevent its snipers from using lethal force against the demonstrators.
The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory presented its full report in mid-May, saying Israeli forces breached international human rights by using live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian protesters during the anti-Israel demonstrations in Gaza
The UN has warned that 1,700 Gazans shot by Israel Defense Forces at protests may need amputations in the next two years because of a lack of healthcare funding to help them recover.
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