News - Middle East: The United Nations secretary-general has sharply condemned a recent Israeli attack that killed seven aid workers in the central part of the Gaza Strip, which is enduring a genocidal Israeli war.

“This is unconscionable — but it is an inevitable result of the way the war is being conducted,” Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.

The victims belonged to the World Central Kitchen (WCK), which is responsible for distributing food aid among the Palestinian people in Gaza. They perished during the attack that had targeted the city of Deir al-Balah in the coastal sliver earlier in the day.

Among the dead were Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish, and US-Canadian employees.

According to Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Israeli military deliberately  killed the aid workers.

“Knowing how Israel operates, my assessment is that Israeli forces intentionally killed WCK aid workers so that donors would pull out and civilians in Gaza could continue to be starved quietly,” Albanese wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The incident brings “the number of aid workers killed in this conflict to 196 — including more than 175 members of our own UN staff,” Guterres said.

“It demonstrates yet again the urgent need for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the expansion of humanitarian aid into Gaza — as the Security Council demanded in its resolution.”

The UN Security Council passed the resolution last week, calling for a ceasefire in the war that the Israeli regime began on October 7 after Gaza’s resistance groups carried out a retaliatory operation against the usurping entity.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed around 33,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

“The resolution must be implemented without delay,” Guterres said.

Meanwhile, spokesman of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif said in a news briefing on Wednesday that a funeral procession will be held in the Iranian capital city of Tehran on Friday to pay tribute to the victims of the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria.

Sharif vehemently denounced the fatal strike, stating that “Zionists’ insane behavior is all out of desperation, and has nothing whatsoever with [military] prowess.”

“The failure of the [Israeli] to attain any of its [declared] objectives over the past six months shows that the status quo will not revert to what it used to be prior to Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” he said.

The IRGC spokesman noted that thousands of people have taken to streets in London in the past few days to express solidarity with oppressed Palestinians, and demand that British authorities reconsider support for the occupying Tel Aviv regime.

Similar rallies have been staged in New York and elsewhere in the world, Sharif said, emphasizing that this year’s Quds Day will be truly an international event thanks to the endurance, steadfastness, courage and resourcefulness of resistance forces, especially fighters from the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.

“Their (Israeli) analysts have acknowledged that Gaza cannot be wiped out. Strikes on hospitals have hit the headlines, and they take unlawful and non-diplomatic measures. The crazy behavior of Zionists does not derive from power, but is all out of desperation,” the IRGC spokesman said. 

He finally wished for the final victory of Palestinians, and more humiliation of Zionists.

The body of Brigadier General Zahedi will be transferred to the central city of Isfahan with a military reception after the procession in Tehran.

The ceremony falls on the occasion of International Quds Day. Millions of people are expected to take to the streets to show solidarity with the Palestinians and condemn Israeli atrocities.

Demonstrations are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. local time (0530 GMT) in Tehran, and people will march from Imam Hossein Square towards Tehran University's sprayer ground. 

Every year on the last Friday of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, worldwide rallies are held to support the Palestinian people’s resistance against Israel and the struggle to liberate their territories which have been occupied since 1967.

The annual event is seen as an opportunity for freedom-seeking people across the world, regardless of faith, to voice their support for the Palestinian cause and vent their anger at Israel.

International Quds Day is among the legacies of the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini, who is revered as a spiritual leader by Muslims across the world. Back in 1979, shortly after leading the Islamic Revolution which toppled the US-backed Shah of Iran, Imam Khomeini named the last Friday of Ramadan the Quds Day.

Source: Press TV