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Iran President Raisi Says Action, Not Words, Needed on Gaza

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (left) with the head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh (File photo: AFP)
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (left) with the head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh (File photo: AFP)
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Iran President Raisi Says Action, Not Words, Needed on Gaza

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (left) with the head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh (File photo: AFP)
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (left) with the head of Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh (File photo: AFP)

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that the time had come for action over the conflict in Gaza rather than talk as he headed to Saudi Arabia to attend a summit on the war between Israel and Hamas.

"Gaza is not an arena for words. It should be for action," Raisi said at Tehran airport before departing for the summit of Arab and Islamic nations in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

"Today, the unity of the Islamic countries is very important," he added, Reuters reported.

Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the expansion of the war in the Gaza Strip is "inevitable" in light of the escalation of aggression against civilians.

During a phone call with his Iraqi counterpart, Fouad Hussein, Amir-Abdollahian said the US support for Israel is "the main reason for the escalation of the current crisis in the region."

The two ministers agreed to support the Palestinian people during their discussion of the developments in Palestine and the genocide in Gaza, according to the Arab World News Agency.

On Saturday, according to IRNA, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei received the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh.

Hamas representative in Lebanon, Othman Hamdan, said Haniyeh traveled to the Iranian capital a few days ago to hold talks.

Iranian media did not report the meeting, and it appears that the visit was kept secret, as the timing of Haniyeh's arrival in Tehran was unclear.

Iran maintains good relations with Hamas. Amir-Abdollahian continuously discussed with Haniyeh the developments of the Israeli aggression on Gaza in the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters gathered in Palestine Square, in the center of Tehran, Friday to express their support for the Palestinians, according to IRNA news agency.

The protesters carried the Palestinian flags and chanted in solidarity with the Palestinians and Gaza.

Deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Ali Fadavi praised the fighting that Hamas is waging against Israel and told supporters to have faith and be prepared to use all means against the enemy when the time comes.

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Iran's President Visits Those Injured in Port Explosion that Killed at Least 28 People

A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)
A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)
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Iran's President Visits Those Injured in Port Explosion that Killed at Least 28 People

A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)
A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)

Iran's president visited those injured Sunday in a huge explosion that rocked one of the Islamic Republic's main ports, a facility purportedly linked to an earlier delivery of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant.

The visit by President Masoud Pezeshkian came as the toll from Saturday's blast at the Shahid Rajaei port outside of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran's Hormozgan province rose to 28 killed and about 1,000 others injured.

Iranian state television described the fire as being under control, saying emergency workers hoped that it would be fully extinguished later Sunday. Overnight, helicopters and heavy cargo aircraft flew repeated sorties over the burning port, dumping seawater on the site, The AP news reported.

Pir Hossein Kolivand, head of Iran’s Red Crescent society offered the death toll and number of injured in a statement carried by an Iranian government website, saying that only 190 of the injured remained hospitalized on Sunday. The provincial governor declared three days of mourning.

Private security firm Ambrey says the port received missile fuel chemical in March. It was part of a shipment of ammonium perchlorate from China by two vessels to Iran, first reported in January by the Financial Times. The chemical used to make solid propellant for rockets was going to be used to replenish Iran’s missile stocks, which had been depleted by its direct attacks on Israel during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Ship-tracking data analyzed by The AP put one of the vessels believed to be carrying the chemical in the vicinity in March, as Ambrey said.

“The fire was reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” Ambrey said.

In a first reaction on Sunday, Iranian Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Reza Talaeinik denied that missile fuel had been imported through the port.

“No sort of imported and exporting consignment for fuel or military application was (or) is in the site of the port,” he told state television by telephone. He called foreign reports on the missile fuel baseless — but offered no explanation for what material detonated with such incredible force at the site. Talaeinik promised authorities would offer more information later.

It’s unclear why Iran wouldn’t have moved the chemicals from the port, particularly after the Beirut port blast in 2020. That explosion, caused by the ignition of hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, killed more than 200 people and injured more than 6,000 others. However, Israel did target Iranian missile sites where Tehran uses industrial mixers to create solid fuel — meaning potentially that it had no place to process the chemical.

Social media footage of the explosion on Saturday at Shahid Rajaei saw reddish-hued smoke rising from the fire just before the detonation. That suggests a chemical compound being involved in the blast, like in the Beirut explosion.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed several emergency aircraft to Bandar Abbas to provide assistance, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported.