Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an annual anti-Israel protest in Tehran yesterday that the Jewish state was a “cancerous tumour” that will soon be excised, drawing a strong US rebuke.

US National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said that if Iran was as concerned about human rights as Mr Ahmadinejad said in his speech in support of the Palestinians, then it should stop supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s diatribe against Israel in his Quds (Jerusalem) Day address was the latest in a long line to have drawn criticism from Western governments.

“The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumour,” he said, adding: “The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land...

“A new Middle East will definitely be formed. With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists.”

The diatribe took place amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

The Jewish state has in recent weeks intensified its threats to possibly bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent it having the capability to produce atomic weapons.

Iran, which is suffering under severe Western sanctions, denies its nuclear programme is anything but peaceful. Its military has warned it will destroy Israel if it attacks.

“They (the Israelis) know very well they don’t have the ability” to successfully attack Iran, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the Isna news agency.

“If they make a mistake, our nation’s reaction will lead to the end of the Zionist regime,” he said.