Mahmoud Abbas Says Ali Khamenei's Statements Aim to Sacrifice Palestinians

Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, strongly criticized the remarks of Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, regarding the attack on Israel on October 7 (15 Mehr last year). In a statement on Monday, June 4, Abbas's office emphasized that the Palestinian people do not need wars that do not align with their aspirations for freedom and independence. Khamenei praised the operations of the extremist group Hamas and other Palestinian groups, stating that the operations which occurred on October 15 were exactly what the region needed. He added that the United States, Israel, and 'some regional governments' had designed a grand and precise plan to change the relationships and equations in the region to create the desired connections between Israel and regional governments, thereby facilitating Israel's dominance over 'the politics and economy of West Asia and the entire Islamic world.' Khamenei asserted that the operations of Hamas had thwarted all their efforts, to the extent that with the events of the past eight months, there is no hope for the revival of that plan. The Hamas militants, whom the U.S. and European countries consider a terrorist group, killed about 1,200 Israeli citizens in their attack on October 15 last year and took 250 hostages to Gaza. Following this action, the Israeli army began extensive attacks on the Gaza Strip, which have continued for the past eight months. In response to Khamenei's remarks, Abbas's office emphasized that it is the Palestinians who pay the price for Israel's attack on Gaza. The statement from the Palestinian Authority's President's office noted: 'They were the first to shed blood in the [Gaza] war, a war that resulted in the deaths of over 36,000 martyrs and 83,000 injured, and infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, mosques, and churches have been destroyed, leaving thousands of citizens and families displaced.' The statement clarified that remarks like Khamenei's 'clearly indicate that their goal is to sacrifice the Palestinians and thousands of children, women, and the elderly, and to destroy the land of Palestine.' The President of the Palestinian Authority also added that such policies expressed by the leader of the Islamic Republic 'do not serve the national goals of Palestine for the liberation of Jerusalem.' This is not the first time that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, the main political rival of Hamas, have publicly criticized Iran. The Fatah movement, the main Palestinian group in the West Bank, accused the Islamic Republic of Iran on April 4 of attempting to spread chaos in the region. Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, stated in a statement that it will not allow 'our sacred cause and the blood of our people to be exploited.'