Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Sunday that Israel’s “brutal” ground and air strikes on the Palestinians even receive “brazen” backing from those which claim to be supporting human rights.
He also made a reference to Israel’s previous military defeats in confrontation with the Palestinian resistance forces, stressing that the Tel Aviv regime will this time suffer another humiliating defeat as well.
On July 8, Israel opened air strikes on the Gaza Strip. After 10 days of bombardment of the enclave from the air and sea, the Israeli forces launched a ground offensive against the densely-populated enclave of 1.8 million Palestinians on July 17.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and nearly 2,700 other have been wounded in the 14-day assault on Gaza.
About 75 percent of the deaths in Gaza have been civilians, according to UN estimates.