Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has urged the Muslim world to confront Saudi Arabia for trying to help legitimize the occupying power despite the ramp-up in the regime's campaign of atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza.
"The Majlis condemns the Zionist regime's martyring and injuring of the defenseless Palestinian people and calls on the authorities in Muslim and Arab countries and their parliaments to fulfill their Islamic and humane responsibility and stop this big scandal in the Arab world," Larijani told the open session of parliament on Sunday, ICANA reported.
Deadly clashes have been reported since March 30 between Israeli security forces and the Palestinians, when tens of thousands of Gaza residents began a six-week march to demand their right to return to the homes of their families in what is now called Israel.
At least nine Palestinian men were killed and dozens injured by Israeli gunfire on the Gaza border on Friday, a week after 18 Palestinians were killed in similar demonstrations.
A total of 1,500 people suffered injuries during last Friday's rally, according to Palestinian officials, western news outlets have reported.
In a Tuesday interview with the US magazine The Atlantic, the controversial Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Israelis are entitled to live peacefully on their own land.
The oil kingdom does not officially recognize Israel and still has no official diplomatic relations with the occupying regime, but improvement in ties have accelerated in recent years in secret.
Saudi Arabia opened its airspace for the first time to a commercial flight to Israel last month—a public sign of an apparent thaw in relations.
Despite his son's compromising stance, King Salman later reaffirmed “the kingdom’s steadfast position toward the Palestinian issue and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to an independent state with Beit-ul-Moqaddas as its capital” in a phone call to US President Donald Trump--a staunch supporter of Israel.
