Delivering the Friday sermon in Tehran, Iran’s Ayatollah Ahmed Al-Jannati criticised the Egyptian government for closing the Rafah Border Crossing and setting up a military buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip, Anadolu news agency has reported. Al-Jannati called the Egyptian measures a “service for the Israeli occupation at a time that the wounds of the Gazans have not yet healed after the recent Israeli war.”
The official Iranian news agency, IRNA, gave details of the sermon, in which the imam pointed out that the Egyptians have experienced the bitterness of the Americans and are neighbours to the Israeli entity. “Why do they ignore the Palestinian Muslims living beside them and obey the Americans by closing the crossing, which is the lung of the Gaza Strip?” he asked.
Egypt closed the Rafah Border Crossing on October 24, after an attack on the Egyptian army in Sinai that led to the death of at least 31 soldiers. Rafah is the main entry and exit point for the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
In the wake of that attack, the Egyptian authorities established a military buffer zone along the border with Gaza. The presumption is that the attack was launched from the besieged territory. Egypt released the names of several Palestinians whom it claims carried out the attack; all were either people who do not exist or are already dead.