GENEVA (Reuters) – Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Tuesday that Israel and the United States will never be able to wipe out Hamas and that Israel could only secure the liberation of its hostages in Gaza with a political solution to the conflict.
In a speech at the United Nations in Geneva in which he described the Islamist group as a “freedom movement, Amirabdollahian said: “Israel and the United States will never be able to eliminate Hamas.”
He added that Israel, which has vowed to wipe out Tehran-backed Hamas, could not have the hostages taken by Hamas during a deadly rampage on Oct. 7 freed through war. He said only a political solution could achieve this.
Amirabdollahian was speaking at a meeting alongside his counterparts from other Middle Eastern countries.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appealed last month to Muslim states with political ties with Israel to at least cut them for “a limited time”. He had previously called for an Islamic oil and food embargo on Israel.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Cécile Mantovani in Geneva, and Elwely Elwelly in Dubai; Editing by Rachel More)
