Iran leader: Israel was knocked out in Al-Aqsa Storm operation | HISPANTV

“If I want to give you, athletes, a summary of the recent events (in Gaza), the phrase is the following: the Zionist regime was knocked out in the Al-Aqsa Storm (operation),” the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, in a meeting with a group of Iranian champions and medalists in the Asian and Para-Asian Games.

The Leader has highlighted that the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), “as a fighting group, not as a government or a country with many facilities, was able to knock out the usurping Zionist regime that has so many facilities.”

Likewise, he thanked all the Iranian athletes who have shown solidarity with the Palestinian people and have expressed their support for the oppressed Palestinian nation. “I thank the National team for entering the field with a kufiya as a sign of defense of the oppressed and all the athletes who each expressed their support for Palestine in one way or another,” he said, referring to the Iranian men’s soccer team. who put on the Palestinian scarf in the match against Qatar held on October 17.

He also praised the Iranian athletes who gave their medals to Palestinian children and the victims of the Israeli attack on the Al-Ahli Al-Arab hospital in Gaza City, which killed more than half a thousand civilians on October 17.

Ayatollah Khamenei has appreciated the athletes who have refused to compete with Israeli rivals as a sign of support for the Palestinian people and in rejection of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

These expressions of support for the oppressed Palestinian people, the Leader has emphasized, reflect “the prominent, logical and high self-esteem face of the Iranian nation in the eyes of hundreds of millions of sports fans. […] This is part of Iran’s national power,” he stressed.

“Today the whole world already knows why the Iranian athlete refrains from competing with Israeli rivals. Because he is a criminal, because he would compete with a criminal regime. Supporting a Zionist athlete is supporting the terrorist and criminal regime [de Israel]”, he stressed.

The Leader has reproached international sports organizations for exercising double standards in the sports field and politicizing it. These organizations “claim that sport is not political, but they themselves politicize it, in the worst possible way, whenever they want,” he criticized.

“They exclude a country from all international sports competitions on the pretext of its involvement in a conflict in a specific place. But, they themselves ignore the murder of 5,000 children in Gaza,” he questioned, referring to the sports sanctions imposed against Russia for the war in Ukraine.

He has lambasted international sports organizations, dominated by Western powers, for depriving Russia of international competitions while ignoring war crimes and the Israeli genocide in Gaza. “They don’t even deprive him [a la entidad sionista] of international competitions,” he censures.

A total of 14,128 people, including more than 5,840 children, have died since October 7, as a result of Israeli bombings against Gaza, while more than 6,800 Palestinians remain missing under the rubble, including at least 4,500 minors, according to the media office of the Gazan government.

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