Iran’s supreme leader yesterday vowed in a rare address that his allies around the region would keep fighting Israel, as he defended his nation’s missile strike on its archfoe.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s address in Tehran was the first since Iran launched its second-ever attack on Israel, and also the first since exchanges of fire pitting Hezbollah fighters against Israeli troops escalated into full-blown war in Lebanon.
Nearly a year after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Israel in its history on Oct. 7 last year, Israel announced it was shifting its focus to securing its border with Lebanon.
Photo: Reuters
Israel says its objective is to allow 60,000 Israelis displaced by a year of cross-border rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah to return to their homes.
Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people since Monday last week, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, and forced hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes in a nation already mired in economic crisis.
They have also killed an Iranian general, a host of Hezbollah commanders and, in their biggest blow to the group in decades, assassinated its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands in Farsi-speaking Iran, Khamenei said in Arabic: “The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms, and will win.”
The address came as Israel weighs retaliation for Hezbollah backer Iran’s missile attack which Tehran said was revenge for the killing of Nasrallah and other top figures.
Khamenei praised Hezbollah, saying that it was providing “a vital service to the entire region and the entire Islamic world.”
The escalation has left people in Lebanon fearful that there would be no swift end to the violence engulfing their nation.
In Beirut, 35-year-old displaced nurse Fatima Salah said people were “scared for our children, and this war is going to be long.”
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant warned that “those who attack the state of Israel pay a heavy price.”
Iran said it would step up its response if Israel counterattacked.
Israel intercepted most of the 200 missiles launched by Iran, although the attack has sparked fear in Israel of more violence to come. In the West Bank, a Palestinian was killed by shrapnel.
Rony Eli-Ya, 37, an Israeli on a pilgrimage to Ukraine’s Uman, said it was “a miracle, not a single rocket killed a single Jew” in the attack.
US President Joe Biden said that Washington was “discussing” possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities.
Lebanon said an Israeli strike yesterday cut off the main international road to Syria, after Israel said Hezbollah was transporting weapons through the Mediterranean nation’s principal land border crossing.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets near the border crossing overnight.
It said they included a 3.5km tunnel that “enables the transfer and storage of large quantities of weapons underground.”
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