President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for cessation of the Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine and immediate implementation of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where the regime has been waging a genocidal war for more than 11 months.

According to The Iran Project, the chief executive made the remarks on Monday, addressing the United Nations Summit of the Future: Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow in New York.

“Cessation of the [Israeli] occupation and apartheid in Palestine and immediate ceasefire in Gaza are preconditions for international development and peace,” he said.

“In a world where civilians are being killed ruthlessly in Gaza, blind state terrorism sheds the blood of children and women, and genocide and assassination is being supported, [conclusion of] no document would serve to guarantee peace and development,” the president said.

The Israeli regime claimed existence in 1948 after occupying huge swathes of regional territories during a Western-backed war. It occupied more land, namely the West Bank, including East al-Quds, and the Gaza Strip, in another such war in 1967.

Ever since, it has been enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank by building hundreds of settlements and deploying the most aggressive restrictions on the movements of Palestinians there. Tel Aviv withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but has been keeping the coastal territory under an all-out land, aerial, and naval siege since a year after it left the territory.

The regime has also subjected Gaza to several wars, the most recent among which is still raging on since commencement last October. The brutal military onslaught has so far claimed the lives of at least 41,455 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded 95,878 others.