Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned Friday that his allies, mainly Hezbollah and Hamas, would continue the fight against Israel, and defended Iran’s missile attack on its sworn enemy amid heightened fears of a conflagration in the Middle East.
Iran’s allies “will not back down”, said Ayatollah Khamenei in a sermon in front of thousands of people in a large mosque in Tehran, during weekly prayers.
This speech came in the middle of the war between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel, which moved most of its operations to the northern front in Lebanon in mid-September, after having weakened Hamas in the Gaza Strip during a devastating offensive. still in progress.
This was launched in response to an attack of unprecedented violence and scale by the Palestinian movement Hamas on October 7, 2023 against Israel.
The Hamas attack “is logical and legitimate”, argued the number one of the Islamic Republic of Iran which does not recognize the existence of the State of Israel.
“The resistance in the region will not retreat despite the martyrs and will achieve victory,” he added in reference to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah killed on September 27 in an Israeli raid near Beirut, and that of Ismaïl Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, killed on July 31 in an attack in Tehran attributed to Israel.
Israel “cannot seriously harm” Hezbollah and Hamas, he said, stressing that Hezbollah’s fight provided a “vital service to the entire region.”
“Totally legit”
On Tuesday, Iran fired nearly 200 missiles toward Israel, saying it was retaliating for the assassinations of Nasrallah and Haniyeh.
“The operation of our armed forces was completely legitimate,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. This is “the least” of responses.
The attack led to cross-threats of retaliation between Israel and Iran.
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden said he was “in discussions” with Israel about possible strikes against oil installations in Iran, a country that is one of the ten largest oil producers.
Main Lebanon-Syria road cut
In Lebanon, where the head of Iranian diplomacy Abbas Araghchi reiterated his country’s “support” for Hezbollah, the Israeli army carried out a raid on the Masnaa area in the east of the country, cutting a vital road axis with neighboring Syria.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of transporting weapons from Syria. Around 310,000 people, mainly Syrians, have fled to Syria in recent days via the Masnaa border crossing.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah “infrastructure sites” adjacent to the Masnaa border crossing, including “an underground tunnel used to smuggle weapons across the border.”
More than 70 tons of explosives
During the night, particularly intense Israeli bombardments targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, destroying several buildings.
AFP footage showed giant flames rising from the area, with thick smoke and flares.
“The ground shook beneath our feet. The sky lit up,” said Mohammed Sheaito, a 31-year-old taxi driver, commenting on the strikes.
According to the Israeli news site Ynet, fighter jets dropped nearly 73 tons of explosives on the Hezbollah intelligence headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Hachem Safieddine, Hassan Nasrallah’s potential successor as leader of Hezbollah, was one of the targets, along with other senior Hezbollah officials who were in the compound at the time, he added.
Asked by AFP whether Safieddine was the target, the Israeli army said it was “examining the information”.
Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out a strike Friday in the southern suburbs “against civil defense teams who were clearing rubble and trying to recover wounded people, leaving one dead among them.”
Fighting in southern Lebanon
Following the start of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas.
After exchanges of cross-border fire for almost a year, Israel has intensified its bombings in Lebanon since September 23, targeting hundreds of Hezbollah targets, according to its army.
The Israeli army also launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon on Monday, where nine of its soldiers died in the fighting against Hezbollah.
On Friday, Hezbollah claimed to have fired shells at Israeli soldiers in the Lebanese border area of Maroun al-Ras. He also announced that he had fired shells and rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.
The Israeli army said it would continue to inflict “severe blows” on Hezbollah, in order to allow the return of around 60,000 border region residents displaced by the Lebanese movement’s incessant rocket fire towards northern Israel. .
According to an AFP report based on official figures, nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 2023, including at least 1,110 since September 23. The Lebanese government estimates the number of displaced people at around 1.2 million.