Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has mentioned Iran and its regional allies won’t again down towards Israel and referred to as for unity amongst Muslim nations as he delivered a uncommon Friday sermon.
Khamenei led prayers on the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran in his first public look since Iran launched an enormous barrage of some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday.
That assault was in retaliation for Israel’s killings of senior Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) figures, together with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and escalating assaults in Lebanon.
“The resistance within the area won’t again down even with the killing of its leaders,” Khamenei mentioned, calling Iran’s assault on Israel “authorized and bonafide”.
“The operations had been … in return for the heinous crimes dedicated by this bloodthirsty legal entity,” he mentioned.
He mentioned Iran would fulfil its “responsibility” to allies in a thought of method.
“We won’t act irrationally … not act impulsively”, he mentioned, including that the nation would comply with selections “handed down by our political and army management”.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar mentioned the occasion was being held at a “delicate and intense time”.
Khamenei’s sermon despatched a message to Israel that the Iranian authorities “usually are not hiding, they don’t seem to be looking for shelter, they don’t seem to be going underground”, Serdar mentioned.
It was the supreme chief’s first such sermon in additional than 4 years, coming simply earlier than the primary anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel, which led to a warfare that has up to now killed greater than 41,700 Palestinians and not too long ago spilled over into Lebanon.
Iran’s proxies in its “axis of resistance” – Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed teams in Iraq – have carried out assaults within the area in assist of the Palestinians within the Gaza warfare.
Addressing huge crowds, Khamenei issued a rallying name to Muslim nations – “from Afghanistan to Yemen, from Iran to Gaza and Lebanon” – saying they need to unite towards frequent “enemy” Israel, which he claimed had deployed “psychological”, “financial” and “army” warfare towards them.
“Our enemy is one,” he mentioned. “If their insurance policies are sowing the seeds of division in a single nation, they might prevail and as soon as they seize management of 1 nation, they transfer to the opposite.”
Al Jazeera’s Serdar mentioned that the message of unity countered “criticism over the previous decade” that Iran had been isolating itself from the area.
“His speech was targeted on unity as a result of he has seen now that the potential for a regional warfare is actual and that’s why he’s asking Muslims to be united, to in some way eradicate this menace as a standard motion, so a regional warfare may be aborted.”
Khamenei final led Friday prayers after america killed revered common Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.
His speech on Friday was preceded by a commemoration for Nasrallah, killed final week within the southern suburbs of Beirut in an Israeli strike, alongside Abbas Nilforoushan, a common from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On Tuesday, Israel launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, an growth of the warfare that has seen it repeatedly bomb Beirut and its southern suburbs.
Later that very same day, Iran made a retaliatory assault on Israel, its second this yr. In April, it had despatched a volley of missiles following a lethal Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
In each assaults, practically all missiles had been intercepted by Israel or its allies, in keeping with Israeli authorities.
Early on Friday, Israel hit Beirut with a barrage of assaults reportedly focusing on senior Hezbollah determine Hashem Safieddine, a putative successor to Nasrallah.
There was no remark from Israel or Hezbollah on his destiny.
Tehran has informed the US through an middleman that any Israeli assault towards Iran would meet an “unconventional response” that features focusing on infrastructure, in keeping with an Iranian official who spoke to Al Jazeera.
US President Joe Biden mentioned on Thursday that Israel’s response may embody a strike on Iran’s oil services.