Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with the head of the Gaza-based terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) on Wednesday and vowed that if “all Palestinians unite and all contribute to the fight, the Zionist regime will not be in existence in 25 years.”
Khamenei told PIJ leader Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah that “all efforts by the Zionist regime to overshadow Palestinian issue will fail and the occupied lands will be liberated by the very perseverance in the battle of all Palestinian groups,” the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Iran promised in May to provide PIJ with $70 million in aid.
There have also been growing indications that Hamas, the main Gaza-based terror group, is also reconciling with Iran after a split over its role in Syria. Imad al-Alami, who is reported to have close ties to Iran, was appointed leader of Hamas in Gaza last month. A number of Hamas officials met with Iranian diplomats in Beirut in September, pledging to face the “Zionist threat” together. The following month, Gaza-based Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said that the terror group sought to “enhance and develop” its ties with Iran in order to prepare for a new war with Israel.
Many Iranian political and military leaders have predicted or called for the destruction of Israel in recent years. Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Falaki said in August that Iran was forming a Shiite army to destroy Israel by 2039 (within 23 years). In March 2015, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, then the commander of the Basij militia, called Israel’s destruction “nonnegotiable.” Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is said to be close to current president Hassan Rouhani, predicted last July that “one day” Israel “be wiped off the map.” And two years ago, Khamenei himself took to Twitter to publish a nine-step plan for destroying Israel.
PIJ is not the only terrorist group currently being welcomed in Iran. The Islamic Republic is hosting a delegation of the Taliban as part of the International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran, the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news site reported.
[Photo: Mehr News ]