Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has denounced the recent killing of over a dozen Palestinian protesters by Israeli forces during a demonstration on Friday's Land Day voicing its full support for the Palestinian nation.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the IRGC described as "invalid and impossible" the fantasy of providing stability and security for the Israeli regime.

Undoubtedly, Muslim countries regard the collapse of the Daesh terrorist group in the region as a prelude to greater attention to the Palestinian cause while the Palestinians, in their recent move, conveyed the message to the world that they stood at the forefront of this path, it added.

"The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, as the Iranian nation's powerful arm, will spare no effort to help the Muslim people of Palestine and will further activate its available capacities to restore Palestinians' rights," the statement pointed out.

At least 17 Palestinians lost their lives and more than 1,400 others sustained injuries when Israeli military forces opened fire on thousands of protesters who had flocked to a sit-in near the border fence between the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories on Friday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held the Israeli regime accountable for the deaths of the Palestinian protesters, and called on the international community to urgently intervene to “protect” the Palestinian people against Israel’s “escalating daily aggression.”

Dubbed “The Great March of Return,” Friday’s rallies in Gaza coincided with the 42nd anniversary of Land Day, which commemorates the murder of six Palestinians by Israeli forces in 1976.

The Return rallies will culminate on May 15 that marks Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe) on which Israel was created.

The IRGC statement also said attempts by the United States and its allies to protect the "child-killing and fake" Israeli regime were doomed to failure.

It added that the new Israeli regime's crime, backed by the US and its European allies, once again revealed that Zionists were very afraid of the outbreak of a new Intifada (uprising) and the capacities of the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas.

It emphasized that the recent Tel Aviv regime's brutal crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip showed that despite "overt, covert and constant support" of the US, all efforts by some reactionary Arab countries would fail and only boost the Palestinians' resistance and accelerate the removal of the "cancerous tumor of Israel."

The IRGC called for adopting an immediate measure to condemn the Israeli regime's crimes and taking practical steps to restore the Palestinians' rights.

Meanwhile, a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs also on Saturday denounced the latest Israeli regime's crimes against the oppressed Palestinian people.

Ali Akbar Velayati expressed confidence that the "defenseless and oppressed" Palestinians would succeed in regaining their occupied homeland.

The senior Iranian official said the US and some European countries are hatching ominous plots in the Middle East with the support of their regional allies.

These plots are aimed at waging proxy wars, turning the Muslim world's fight against the Israeli regime into a war among Muslim states and encouraging some countries to normalize ties with the Tel Aviv regime in order to dominate the region, he added. 

Velayati emphasized that the brutal crime against the Palestinians indicates that the US, the Israeli regime and their allies are afraid of the Palestinian resistance movement's achievements.

He said Iran has always supported and would continue to back the oppressed Palestinian people.  
 
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also on Saturday denounced the murder of more than a dozen Palestinians at the hands of “Zionist tyrants.”

Having stolen their land, the Israeli regime now murders the peaceful Palestinian protesters during their march against the regime’s brutalities, Zarif said on his Twitter page.

The Israeli military threatened to step up its “response” if tensions continued on the Gaza fence shortly after the UN held an emergency meeting over the regime’s massacre of more than a dozen Palestinians.

Israel’s chief military spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis said Saturday that the regime had thus far restricted its response to those he claimed to be trying to breach Gaza’s border with the occupied territories.

Ahead of the protest, the Israeli military had deployed tanks and 100 snipers with the authority to use live rounds on the Gaza border.

The latest threat came a day after the 15-member Security Council met at Kuwait’s request, with its UN representative Mansour al-Otaibi describing the situation in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip as “very dangerous.”

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