Iran's President President <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/gulf-news/saudi-arabia/2023/04/04/irans-president-ebrahim-raisi-accepts-invitation-to-visit-saudi-arabia/" target="_blank">Ebrahim Raisi</a> delivered an unprecedented speech to an annual pro-Palestinian rally in the Gaza Strip on Friday. The conservative leader urged Palestinians to press on with their struggle against <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/israel/" target="_blank">Israel</a> in an online speech to hundreds of supporters of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group at a football stadium in Gaza City. It was a rare display of <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/iran/" target="_blank">Iran</a>’s importance to the Hamas militant group that rules the territory. His speech — the first of its kind to Palestinians — appeared to culminate years of quiet diplomacy aimed at mending a rift between Hamas and its long-time patron, Iran, over the devastating civil war in Syria. Mr Raisi was speaking on Jerusalem Day, or Al Quds Day after the city’s Arabic name, which falls on the last Friday of Ramadan. He criticised the Palestinian Authority's recent meetings with Israeli officials in Aqaba, Jordan, and Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. A surge of violence in Israel and the West Bank after an Israeli police raid at <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/2023/04/11/israel-bans-non-muslims-from-al-aqsa-mosque-compound-until-end-of-ramadan/" target="_blank">Al Aqsa Mosque </a>in Jerusalem last week served to undermine the summits, which sought to de-escalate soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions. “The initiative to self-determination is today in the hands of the Palestinian fighters,” Mr Raisi said, condemning the Palestinian Authority that rules parts of the West Bank not controlled by Israel. During the ceremony, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, celebrated that militants in southern Lebanon, Gaza and Syria had fired rockets into Israeli territory, describing the attacks as a response to the police raid on Al Aqsa Mosque — the third-holiest site in Islam . “The response came like a simple electric shock,” Mr Sinwar said of the rocket fire. For the past four decades, Al Quds Day parades have drawn thousands to the streets around the Middle East. The event is most dramatic in Iran, where crowds burn Israeli flags and chant pledges to liberate Jerusalem.
