Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with a group of students in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – An Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commander said the Mediterranean Sea could be closed if the United States and its allies continued to commit “crimes” in Gaza, Iranian media reported on Saturday, without explaining how that would happen.

Iran backs Hamas against Israel and it accuses the United States of backing what it calls Israeli crimes in Gaza, where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are carrying out a military campaign against Iran-backed Hamas following its brutal Oct. 7 attack against southern Israeli communities.

“They shall soon await the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, [the Strait of] Gibraltar and other waterways,” Tasnim quoted Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, coordinating commander of the Guards, as saying.

Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen has over the past month attacked merchant vessels sailing through the Red Sea as the group threatens to hit any Israel-linked ship. The series of incidents led some shipping companies to switch routes.

The White House on Friday said Iran was “deeply involved” in planning operations against commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The US on Monday announced plans to spearhead an international maritime coalition, responding to escalating attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea by the Houthi rebels.

Iran has no direct access to the Mediterranean itself and it was not clear how the Guards could attempt to close it off, although Naqdi talked of “the birth of new powers of resistance and the closure of other waterways.”

“Yesterday, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz became a nightmare for them, and today they are trapped … in the Red Sea,” Naqdi was quoted as saying.

The only groups backed by Iran on the Mediterranean are Lebanon’s Hezbollah and allied militia in Syria, at the far end of the sea from Gibraltar.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday called the Muslim world to block fuel from reaching Israel. On his X (formerly Twitter) account, he said: “Certain Muslim governments are committing a crime by helping the Zionist regime. Today, it is the Muslim governments’ duty to prevent commodities, oil, fuel etc. from reaching the Zionist regime, in the same way that it is preventing water from reaching Gaza.”