Iran’s supreme leader vowed in a rare address on Friday that his ally in the region will keep fighting Israel, as he defended his country’s missile attack on its arch enemy.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speech in Tehran was the first since Iran launched its second attack on Israel, and also the first since Hezbollah fighters’ firing against Israeli troops in Lebanon escalated into a full-scale war.
On October 7, almost a year after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Israel in its history, Israel announced it was shifting its focus to securing its border with Lebanon.
Israel says it aims to allow the 60,000 Israelis displaced by cross-border rocket attacks by Hezbollah a year to return to their homes.
Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people since September 23, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in a country already mired in economic crisis. Had to happen.
They have also killed an Iranian general, several Hezbollah commanders and, in their biggest blow to the group in decades, assassinated its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands in Persian-speaking Iran, he said in Arabic: “With these martyrdoms the resistance in the region will not retreat and will prevail.”
The address comes as Israel considers retaliating for a missile attack by Hezbollah-backed Iran, which Tehran said was retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah and other top figures.
Khamenei praised Hezbollah, saying it was providing “an important service to the entire region and the entire Islamic world.”
This tension has left the people of Lebanon fearful that the violence prevailing in their country will not end soon.
In Beirut, displaced nurse Fatima Salah, 35, said people were “scared for our children, and this war is going to go on for a long time”.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant warned that “those who attack the State of Israel will pay a heavy price”.
Iran said it would escalate its response if Israel retaliated.
Israel intercepted most of the 200 missiles launched by Iran, although the attack has raised fears of more future violence in Israel. A Palestinian died after being hit by shrapnel in the West Bank.
Ronnie Eli-Ya, a 37-year-old Israeli on pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine, said it was “a miracle, not a single rocket hit a single Jew in the attack”.
President Joe Biden said the United States was “discussing” possible Israeli attacks on Iranian oil facilities.
– Border crossing closed –
Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Friday cut off the main international road to Syria after Israel said Hezbollah was transporting weapons across the small Mediterranean country’s key land border crossing.
The attack comes as 310,000 people, mostly Syrians, have fled the war in recent days pitting Israel against Hezbollah in Lebanon for relative safety in neighboring Syria.
The Israeli military said its warplanes attacked Hezbollah positions near the border crossing overnight.
It said they included a 3.5-kilometre (two-mile) long tunnel that “enables the transfer and storage of large quantities of weapons underground”.
The Syrian border is the only land route out of Lebanon and the attack could trap thousands of people unable to escape.
Lebanon’s official national news agency reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meanwhile arrived in Beirut for talks with Lebanese officials.
He arrived after heavy overnight bombardment of Hezbollah’s main stronghold in the southern suburbs, the US and an Israeli news website said, just a week after Israel killed its own Nasrallah in an attack aimed at a potential successor to the militant group.
An AFP photographer said the attacks destroyed at least five buildings and left a large crater in the road.
US news site Axios, citing three Israeli officials, said the target of one of Israel’s recent Beirut attacks was Hashem Saffieddine, a possible successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah.
Israeli news website Ynet also reported that Saffieddin had been targeted, while the Israeli military told AFP it was looking into the reports.
In Lebanon, a source close to Hezbollah said Nasrallah was temporarily buried at a secret location until a public funeral could be held.
Israel announced this week that its troops had launched ground attacks on parts of southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, after heavy bombardment of areas across the country where the group has influence.
Hezbollah said it opened fire on Israeli troops in a border area in southern Lebanon on Friday, the latest such clash along the border.
The militant group also said it continued firing rockets and sirens into northern Israel on Friday to warn of fire.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 37 people were killed and 151 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
The Israeli army said nine of its soldiers have been killed in fighting in Lebanon.
– Tulkarem strike –
In the occupied West Bank, a source in the Palestinian security services told AFP that the airstrike on the refugee camp of Tulkarem, which killed 18 people, was the deadliest attack in the territory since 2000.
The Israeli military said its strike in the northern West Bank killed Hamas leader Zahi Yasser Abd al-Razek Oufi, whom it accused of taking part in several attacks.
Demands for restraint have increased manifold but similar appeals made for months to stop fighting in Gaza have failed to bring a ceasefire.
Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel killed 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israeli counterattacks in Gaza have killed at least 41,788 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has described the figures as reliable.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)