"Despite so much sanctions ever since the beginning of the Revolution we openly announce that we have armed the Palestinians and we again announce that we have also armed Hezbollah to defend themselves against Israel,'' he stressed, addressing a conference of Muslim clergies in Support of Palestinian Resistance in Tehran on Wednesday.
Speaking at an international conference in support of Palestine in Tehran, Rafsanjani encouraged the clergies in the conference to mobilize the people who believe in their piety to rise against Israel, arguing that if the Islamic countries will decide to act in accordance with Qur'an no power will be able to object.
Israel started pounding the Gaza Strip in early July, inflicting heavy losses on the Palestinian land. Almost 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including women, children and elderly people, were killed in the Israeli onslaught. Around 11,000 others were injured.
This comes as the founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini was the first great religious leader to authorize the use of monies received for charitable disbursement to support the Palestinian combatants.
When the Quds-occupying regime perpetrated yet another crime in its long list of crimes and set fire to the al-Aqsa mosque, Imam Khomeini, with complete foresight and in stark contrast to the policy adopted by others on the matter, which was to endeavor to have the mosque rebuilt, stressed the need to preserve the vestiges of Israel's crimes as a symbolic factor to incite and encourage the Muslims to rise up against the existence of the main reason for the crime, that is the occupying regime.
From the very beginning, he introduced the Islamic aspect and the ideological dimension of the struggle with Israel as the most effective factor in the movement for mobilizing the oppressed Palestinian nation and attracting support for them from the Islamic ummah.
He considered other methods of struggle, such as reliance on Arab nationalism and nationalist views along with other imported and non-Islamic ideologies, as a departure from the path of struggle for the freedom of Quds.
Consequently, he emphasized the importance of public knowledge and awareness in the Islamic world stemming from the principles of belief and the ummah's common faith and culture, and of avoiding sectarian differences.