Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) deputy prime minister for economic affairs said on Tuesday that all government departments and aid agencies are coordinating with each other to help the victims of the earthquake in Herat and that rescue teams are working to pull victims out from under the rubble.

Baradar assured the people during a press conference after visiting the earthquake affected areas that humanitarian aid will be distributed to all quake-affected areas fairly.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has deployed all available resources to save the victims, and all relevant ministries and departments are working to provide urgent aid, and we have seen that they have been delivering,” Baradar said.

He called on international aid organizations and national businessmen to continue sending aid to the earthquake-affected areas. He also assured the people that homes destroyed by the earthquake will be rebuilt.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) assures that the destroyed houses, which are about 1,000 to 1,500 houses, will be rebuilt with baked bricks,” Baradar said.

Herat officials said local people had played a key role in helping the victims of the earthquake. National businessmen and local aid organizations also sent food, clothes and drinking water to the earthquake affected areas.

“Our businessmen and wealthy people at home and abroad contacted us and delivered bread, water and blankets,” Noor Ahmad Islamjar, the governor of Herat, said.

Meanwhile, the Herat Chamber of Commerce and Investment assured the people that it will cooperate with the government in building houses.

“We want to heal the pain of these people with you. The private sector and chambers are ready to solve their housing problem together with the government,” Mohammad Yunus Qazizadeh, head of the Herat Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said.

According to the government, more than 1,000 people died and more than 2,000 people were injured in Saturday’s string of earthquakes in Herat.

Mohammad Qasim Khalid, the governor of Kabul, has compared the governments of Iran and Pakistan to Israel because of their treatment of Afghan refugees.

“The governments of these two countries (Iran and Pakistan) are certainly pro-Israel governments. They resemble Israel.

“The cruelty and horror they commit against our Afghans cannot be tolerated. Our request to the sheikhs, scholars and common people of these countries is to advise their governments to stop this cruelty, horror and barbarism that they have started on Afghans,” Khalid said at a gathering of scholars in Kabul.

This comes after Pakistan announced last week that it plans to arrest and deport as many as 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees – a decision that sparked outrage among rights organizations around the world.

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) foreign ministry’s spokesman on Tuesday called on the international community to urgently prevent Israel from committing genocide against Palestinians.

Balkhi said on X: “Cutting water, food, medicine & electricity supplies, martyrdom of 704 civilians, including 143 children and 105 women, & deliberate targeting of homes, mosques, hospitals & ambulances in the Gaza Strip by the brutal Israeli forces amounts of war crimes & crimes against humanity.”

He added: “We urge world countries & bodies, particularly Muslim countries and the UN, to urgently prevent the Zionist regime from committing a genocide which unfortunately has the support of the US and some European countries.”

The call came as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the fiercest air strikes in the 75-year history of its conflict with the Palestinians, razing whole districts to dust despite a Hamas threat to execute a captive for each home hit.

Israel has vowed “mighty revenge” since Hamas fighters rampaged through its towns, leaving streets strewn with bodies in by far the deadliest attack in its history.

It has called up hundreds of thousands of reservists and placed Gaza, crowded home to 2.3 million people, under total siege.

Israeli media said deaths from Saturday’s Hamas attacks had reached 900, mostly civilians gunned down in homes, on streets or at a desert dance party.

Scores of Israelis and some foreigners were taken to Gaza as hostages. Some were paraded through the streets.

Gaza’s health ministry said Israel’s retaliatory strikes had killed at least 770 people and wounded more than 4,000. The air strikes, already the heaviest ever, intensified on Tuesday night, shaking the ground and pouring columns of smoke and flames into the morning sky.

The United Nations said more than 180,000 Gazans had been made homeless, many huddling on streets or in schools. Bombardment shut roads to emergency crews.