An Israeli tank is seen in the Gaza Strip on December 25, 2023. (Photo by Israeli media)

Iran’s top security official says the United States and Israel are both suffering a two-sided defeat in the ongoing war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as they can neither stop the aggression nor continue it in the besieged territory.

Ali Akbar Ahmadian, who serves as Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), made the remark in a meeting with former Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi in Tehran on Tuesday.

Stressing that the US and Israel are both in a state of defeat from two aspects, Ahmadian said, explaining, This regime loses if it continues the war, and will lose again if it is forced to stop it. Whether the US leaves the region or not and whether it will expand the war or not, it is a loser in both cases.

The SNSC chief also underlined the need for the resistance front to bolster itself as a superior power in the region, saying the resistance front’s enemies are doing their utmost to prevent such a goal.

If the resistance front can become integrated in the economic field as well as in the political and military sectors and bring about achievements, it will attain the position of a superior power in the regional and international equations, Ahmadian said.

For this reason, our enemies are making every effort to prevent the realization of these goals, he added.

Abdul-Mahdi, for his part, pointed to Ahmadian’s remarks and described them as completely correct.

The two sides also exchanged their views on various issues of mutual interest and bilateral cooperation between Tehran and Baghdad.

Israel waged the US-backed war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of death and destruction in Palestine.

The Israeli aggression has so far killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Over 56,000 individuals have been wounded while many bodies remain trapped under rubble.

Around 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced to southern Gaza, with tens of thousands crammed in UN schools or taking refuge in makeshift tents.

The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a complete siege on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.