Ahmadinejad: Israel at end of line, will soon fade away

Dec 12, 2008, 10:08 GMT

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again attacked Israel Friday, saying the Jewish state would soon 'fade away from the earth.'

'The crimes being committed by the Zionist regime (Israel) are happening because it is aware that it has reached the end of the line and will soon fade away from the earth,' Mehr news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during an anti-Israeli rally in Tehran.

He said Israel had lost direction and was increasingly finding that world powers were becoming hesitant to show further support for the Jewish state.

Ahmadinejad claimed that Israel's 'crimes' in Gaza were aimed at changing the political leaders in the troubled region in line with its own political interests.

Israel has enforced a blockade on the Gaza coastal strip since the Palestinian group Hamas seized power there in June 2007.

The Iranian president has attracted international condemnation in the past three years with his attacks on Israel and his statements expressing doubts about western accounts of the Holocaust in World War II.

However, he has repeatedly rejected charges he is anti-Semitic.

Iran does not acknowledge the sovereignty of Israel and supports the Hamas movement in Gaza.

At the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, the Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami condemned international organizations and even Arab countries, including Egypt, for having remained silent over the situation in Gaza.