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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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| By Associated Press July 28, 2006 |
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Israel has ordained its own destruction by invading Lebanon, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday, according to the state news agency.
Addressing the clerical staff of the Friday prayer sermons in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said Israel and its supporters "should know that they cannot end the business that they have begun."
"The occupying regime of Palestine has actually pushed the button of its own destruction by launching a new round of invasion and barbaric onslaught on Lebanon," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the president as saying.
Iran is one of the two major patrons of Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group that began the current fighting when its fighters crossed into Israel on July 12 and kidnapped two Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The other patron is Syria, an Iranian ally.
Ahmadinejad is a hardline opponent of Israel and the Jewish people. Last October he provoked an international outcry when he said that Israel should be "wiped off the map." He has repeatedly cast doubt on the Nazi Holocaust.
His government also funds Hamas, the governing party in the Palestinian territories. Militants linked to Hamas crossed into Israel on June 25 and seized an Israeli soldier, provoking an Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah has said that one of the reasons for its cross-border raid 17 days later was to relieve the pressure off the Palestinians in Gaza.
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