“Iran supports the legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Sunday, adding that Israel “must be held accountable” for the situation a day after the Hamas attack, France-Presse and Agerpres reported.

• LIVE War in Israel: Hezbollah also attacked from the north, Israelis responded with strikes in Lebanon / Hamas still has fighters in 7 cities in Israel

“Iran supports the legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation. The Zionist regime and its supporters must be held accountable in this matter,” President Raisi said in an address to the “Palestinian nation,” television reported.

“Muslim governments must join the Muslim community in supporting a Palestinian nation,” he added.

Earlier, the official news agency IRNA reported that on Sunday Raisi had a separate telephone conversation with the leaders of the Palestinian armed movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

“President Raisi spoke by phone with the Secretary General of Jihad, Ziad al-Nakhla, about the events in Palestine,” and then with “the head of the political bureau of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh,” IRNA reported.

Iran has close ties to both Palestinian movements and was one of the first countries to welcome the Hamas offensive launched on Saturday.

The IRNA news agency initially did not provide details of the content of the two phone calls to President Raisi, who hosted Nahala and Haniyeh separately in Tehran in June.

“This is a product of the holy wrath that the Zionist enemy has inflicted on the Palestinian nation”

The Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, General Mohammad Bagheri, on Sunday praised the “difficult operation” launched by “Palestinian militant groups” against Israel.

It is “a product of the holy wrath that the Zionist enemy has planted on the oppressed Palestinian nation and must now reap,” General Bagheri added in a statement.

Demonstrators gathered and waved the Palestinian flag in Felestine (Palestine) Square in Tehran on Saturday evening. “The great liberation has begun,” was written in Arabic on a huge banner unfurled on the facade of the building.

In another square in the Iranian capital, a huge sign was erected depicting a black-and-white drawing of a Palestinian kufi covering the blue-and-white Israeli flag, with the words “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the name of the operation, according to Hamas.

Israel and the Gaza Strip are at war after a surprise and spectacular military offensive launched Saturday morning by Hamas, which fired thousands of rockets, infiltrated Israeli territory and captured Israelis. According to preliminary data, the Israeli side killed more than 600 people, and the Palestinian side – more than 300.

• Also read: Israel fears Hamas attack is just the beginning: ‘It appears to be a strategic event led by Iran’ / ‘Could divert attention from a much more painful strike in the north’