Ahmadinejad sends envoys to demand end to Gaza offensive

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent 22 envoys to Europe and Asia to push for an immediate halt to Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip, the Mehr news agency reported Wednesday.

"Twenty-two members of the government have been sent by the president to European and Asian countries," foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told the semi-official agency.

The envoys would convey Iran's demand for "an immediate halt to the attacks by the usurper Zionist regime and an end to the blockade of Gaza," the spokesman added.

Ghashghavi also criticized the UN Security Council's failure to adopt a resolution demanding an immediate end to Israel's Operation Cast Lead, saying the offensive was part of a "plot by international superpowers" conducted with the complicity of unnamed regional countries.

The European Union has made several appeals for Israel to end the 12-day-old offensive while Israel's cabinet met on Wednesday to discuss an Egyptian ceasefire initiative.

The Mehr report did not specify which countries the diplomats would visit although Iranian newspapers said the list included Turkey, one of the few Muslim majority countries to have diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.

Iran, whose president has previously called for Israel to be wiped off the map, does not recognize Israel and is a staunch supporter of the Islamist movement Hamas which runs the Gaza Strip.

Since Israel unleashed its attacks against Hamas in Gaza on December 27, at least 680 Palestinians have been killed, including 215 children, and more than 2,950 wounded, according to Gaza medics.

Seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed during the same time in clashes with Hamas and rockets fired from Gaza.