The supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, stated this Friday (4) that the attack against Israel was “the least punishment” for the country so far, a comment he made with a rifle in his hand during a collective prayer in memory of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah killed in a Tel Aviv attack last week.
“What our military forces did was the least punishment for the Israeli regime’s aggression,” said Iran’s highest political and religious authority at the Imam Khomeini mosque in Tehran, where thousands of worshipers were gathered.
“The brilliant action of our armed forces a few nights ago was completely legal and legitimate,” Khamenei added, referring to the launch of nearly 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday night.
During his speech, Khamenei again threatened Israel, saying that, “if necessary, we will attack the Zionist regime again in the future”, although he clarified that “we will not hesitate or rush. We will do what is sensible.”
The Iranian supreme leader stressed that “every nation has the right to defend itself against the aggressor”, in a reference to the murders of Nasrallah and an Iranian general in the Israeli attacks in Beirut a week ago, and of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in July, in Tehran.
“Hezbollah and its heroic, martyred leader are the essence of Lebanon’s historic virtues and identity,” Khamenei said of the terrorist group, which is one of Tehran’s main allies in the region.
During the speech, Iran’s highest authority also described the Hamas massacre in Israel last year, which triggered the war in Gaza, as “logical and legal”.
“The attacks that occurred around this time last year were a logical and legal international movement, and the Palestinians were right,” Khamenei said in Friday’s rare sermon in Tehran.
Call for Islamic unity
Khamenei also called on the Muslim world to unite against the enemy, “whose policy is to divide and conquer,” according to him.
“The policy of the Koran is that Muslim nations must be united,” he declared, while emphasizing that the “enemy of Iran is the enemy of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Yemen.” .
Furthermore, he blamed the United States for tensions in the Middle East. “The US seeks control of the region’s resources through the Israeli regime,” he stated.
After the speech, Khamenei held his first collective Friday prayer since 2020, when he did so following the death of Qasem Soleimani, a former general of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, assassinated by the US in Iraq.
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