All the country’s resources should be at the disposal of the government to help Gaza and Palestine fight Israel, a firebrand senior cleric has said during Friday prayers.

Ahmad Alamolhoda is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in one of the most important Shiite cities, Mashhad, where a revered imam is buried. He is also the father-in-law of Ebrahim Raisi, who was handpicked by Khamenei to become president in 2021, simply by barring all other serious candidates from running, in what turned out to be a selection rather than an election.

“As soon as the Supreme Leader commands, we should all rush to help Palestine and Gaza using all of the resources belonging to the regime and the people.”

“We have a duty to destroy Israel,” Alamolhoda said.

The hardline rhetoric comes amid rising tensions in the Middle East as the Hamas-Israel war rages on. This adds to the wave of incendiary remarks made by Iranian authorities in recent days warning Israel and its ally the United States of escalating tensions if attacks on Gaza don’t stop.

On Thursday, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian repeated the regime’s warning during an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly on the Israel-Hamas conflict in New York.

"I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine, that we do not welcome the expansion of the war in the region.”

“But if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire,” said Abdollahian.