Iran posits stopping Israel's 'genocide in Gaza' could end regional crises

Iran's foreign minister has said that crises in the region will stop if Israel's war on besieged Gaza ends, warning that the war could heighten tensions across the Middle East.

"An end to the genocide in Gaza will lead to an end of military actions and crises in the region," Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.

"The security of the Red Sea is tied to the developments in Gaza, and everyone will suffer if Israel's crimes in Gaza do not stop ... All the [resistance] fronts will remain active."

US President Joe Biden on Friday called Yemen's Houthi group a "terrorist" entity, after American and British warplanes, ships and submarines launched dozens of air strikes across Yemen overnight.

The Houthi group, which has been targeting Red Sea's shipping in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel, has threatened a "strong and effective response" to the US and British strikes.

Amir-Abdollahian also said Tehran shared intelligence with Iraq about what it said were activities of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Iran has said its Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked Israel's "spy HQ" in Iraq in the city of Erbil on Monday. Iraq later denied that there was any such spy centre in the country.

Not 'terrorist group'

Amir-Abdollahian also said Iran does not consider Hamas a "terrorist group" but a "liberation movement against the [Israeli] occupation."

He said the US has made a mistake by "supporting the genocide and ethnic cleansing" in Gaza while slamming Tel Aviv for "ignoring all UN resolutions adopted in support of Palestinians' rights."

Israel has murdered more than 24,400 Palestinians, around 70 percent of them women, young children and adolescents, in Gaza in relentless bombardments and a ground invasion. It has also killed nearly 400 Palestinians in occupied West Bank since October 7 when a Hamas blitz in southern Israel left at least 1,130 Israelis dead.

UN says a ceasefire is what's needed, first and foremost, to help some 60,000 wounded people and several hundred new arrivals every day in besieged Gaza.