Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed in a uncommon speech on Friday (Oct. 4, 2024) that his allies within the area would proceed preventing Israel, as he defended his nation’s missile strike in opposition to its archenemy.
Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had a rifle at his facet as he addressed worshipers in Tehran in a uncommon public sermon, days after Iran’s missile assault on Israel.
Khamenei delivered the sermon, his first in practically 5 years, to 1000’s of worshipers carrying portraits of slain leaders of Iran’s “axis of resistance” in opposition to Israel and america.
LIVE updates from the Israeli assault
Khamenei’s speech in Tehran was his first since Iran launched its second assault on Israel, and in addition the primary since exchanges of fireside between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops escalated right into a full-blown warfare in Lebanon.
Khamenei mentioned Hamas’s assault on Israel final 12 months, which sparked the warfare in Gaza, was “logical and authorized.”
“The Al-Aqsa flood assaults that came about round this time final 12 months had been a logical and authorized worldwide measure and the Palestinians had been proper,” Khamenei mentioned.
Khamenei mentioned armed teams aligned with Tehran “is not going to again down” even after a sequence of Israeli assassinations of militant leaders.
“The resistance within the area is not going to retreat from these martyrdoms and can win,” Khamenei mentioned.
Almost a 12 months after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched the deadliest assault in its historical past on October 7, Israel introduced it was shifting its strategy to securing its border with Lebanon.
Israel says its purpose is to permit 60,000 Israelis displaced by a 12 months of cross-border rocket assaults launched by Hezbollah to return to their houses.
Israel’s assaults on Hezbollah strongholds throughout Lebanon have killed greater than 1,000 folks since September 23, in line with the Lebanese Well being Ministry, and compelled a whole lot of 1000’s extra to flee their houses in a rustic already mired in an financial disaster.
Additionally they killed a number of Hezbollah commanders, an Iranian basic and, of their greatest blow to the group in a long time, assassinated its chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
Talking to a crowd of 1000’s in Farsi-speaking Iran, he mentioned in Arabic: “The resistance within the area is not going to again down from these martyrdoms and can win.”
The speech comes as Israel weighs retaliating for the missile assault by pro-Hezbollah Iran, which Tehran mentioned was revenge for the killing of Nasrallah and different senior figures.
The escalation has left folks in Lebanon fearful that there will probably be no fast finish to the violence engulfing their nation.
In Beirut, Fatima Salah, a 35-year-old displaced nurse, mentioned folks had been “scared for our kids and that this warfare goes to be lengthy.”
Israeli Protection Minister Yoav Gallant warned that “those that assault the State of Israel pay a excessive value.”
Iran mentioned it will escalate its response if Israel counterattacked.
Israel intercepted many of the 200 missiles launched by Iran, though the assault has raised fears in Israel of extra violence sooner or later. Within the West Financial institution, a Palestinian was killed by shrapnel.
Rony Eli-Ya, 37, an Israeli on a pilgrimage to Uman in Ukraine, mentioned it was “a miracle, not a single rocket killed a single Jew” within the assault.
Fearing that extra violence will draw in additional international locations within the area, US President Biden mentioned that “we will keep away from” an all-out warfare within the Center East, however that “there may be nonetheless loads to do, loads nonetheless to do.”
He additionally mentioned america was “discussing” doable Israeli assaults on Iranian oil amenities.
Border crossing closed
Lebanon mentioned an Israeli strike on Friday (Oct 4, 2024) reduce off the principle worldwide freeway into Syria, after Israel mentioned Hezbollah was shifting weapons via the small Mediterranean nation’s principal land border crossing.
The assault, on which Israel has not commented, comes after 310,000 folks, largely Syrians, fled within the last days of the warfare between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon searching for relative security in neighboring Lebanon. Syria.
Israel’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, accused Hezbollah of utilizing the principle worldwide border crossing from Lebanon into Syria to move weapons.
Lebanon’s coast shares a border with Israel, with which Hezbollah is at warfare, and Syria.
Hezbollah has traditionally relied on Syria, with which it’s allied, to move weapons and different tools from Iran.
Masnaa, as it’s identified, is the principle land crossing in a foreign country, and the assault may depart 1000’s of individuals trapped and unable to fly.
In the meantime, Iranian International Minister Abbas Araghchi landed in Beirut for talks with Lebanese officers, Lebanon’s official Nationwide Information Company reported.
It got here after an intense night time of bombing of Hezbollah’s principal stronghold within the southern suburbs, with a US and Israeli information web site saying Israel attacked the militant group’s potential successor only a week after it killed its Nasrallah.
The assaults destroyed at the least 5 buildings and left an enormous crater within the highway, an AFP photographer mentioned.
A goal of certainly one of Israel’s latest assaults in Beirut was Hashem Safieddine, a possible successor to Hezbollah chief Nasrallah, the US information web site Axios mentioned, citing three Israeli officers it didn’t determine.
Israeli information web site Ynet additionally reported that Safieddine had been focused, whereas the Israeli army advised AFP it was investigating the reviews.
In Lebanon, a supply near Hezbollah mentioned Nasrallah had been given a short lived burial in a secret location till a public funeral could possibly be held.
Israel introduced this week that its troops had begun floor assaults in elements of southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, after days of intense shelling in areas throughout the nation the place the group holds sway.
Hezbollah mentioned it shelled Israeli troops in a border space in southern Lebanon on Friday, within the newest such conflict on the border.
The militant group additionally mentioned it continued to fireside rockets, and sirens warning of incoming hearth sounded in northern Israel on Friday.
Lebanon’s Well being Ministry mentioned Friday that 37 folks had been killed and 151 wounded by Israeli strikes over the earlier 24 hours.
The Israeli army mentioned 9 of its troopers had been killed in fight in Lebanon.
Tulkarem strike
Within the occupied West Financial institution, a supply within the Palestinian safety companies advised AFP that an airstrike on the Tulkarem refugee camp, which killed 18 folks, was the deadliest within the territory since 2000.
The Israeli army mentioned its strike within the northern West Financial institution killed Hamas chief Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, whom it accused of collaborating in quite a few assaults.
Alaa Sroji, a social activist within the space, mentioned an Israeli warplane “hit a cafeteria in a four-story constructing.”
Requires restraint have multiplied, however months of comparable calls to cease the preventing in Gaza have failed to realize a ceasefire.
The Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel killed 1,205 folks in Israel, largely civilians, in line with an AFP tally based mostly on official Israeli figures that embrace hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at the least 41,788 folks, most of them civilians, in line with figures supplied by the Hamas-controlled territory’s Well being Ministry. The United Nations has described the figures as dependable.
Printed – October 4, 2024 04:05 pm IST
