“We appeal to Iran to hold an international Islamic conference and denounce the US and Israeli occupiers’ stance (on Quds)”, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told Tasnim on Monday.

Quds, like Mecca, is a holy site to Muslims, he stressed, calling on the Islamic Ummah (community) to stand united in the face of the Israeli regime’s atrocities and support the Palestinian nation.

Al-Zahar described the very existence of Israel on Palestinian lands as “illegal” and “illegitimate”, saying that the US will contribute to Israeli crimes if it moves its embassy from Tel Aviv to either the occupied East or West Quds.

He stressed that Hamas’s stance on this issue will not change and “we will never recognize the US embassy” as the entire land belongs to the Palestinian nation only.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Friday said the United States is planning to open its embassy in Quds in May.

“We are excited about taking this historic step, and look forward with anticipation to the May opening,” she said.

On Saturday, Hamas strongly condemned Washington’s planned move, terming it as “provocative” for all Muslim and Arab nations.

The measure to relocate the US embassy concurrent with the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), when hundreds of Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their homeland by Israeli regime forces back in 1948, is a naked act of aggression against the Palestinian nation, the Hamas spokesman, Abdullatif al-Qanou, said.