Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has mentioned Iran and its regional allies won’t again down in opposition to 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 a large 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 legit”.
“The operations had been … in return for the heinous crimes dedicated by this bloodthirsty felony entity,” he mentioned.
He mentioned Iran would fulfil its “obligation” to allies in a thought of method.
“We won’t act irrationally … not act impulsively”, he mentioned, including that the nation would observe 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 “are usually 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 struggle that has thus far 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 help of the Palestinians within the Gaza struggle.
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 in opposition to frequent “enemy” Israel, which he claimed had deployed “psychological”, “financial” and “army” warfare in opposition to them.
“Our enemy is one,” he mentioned. “If their insurance policies are sowing the seeds of division in a single nation, they could 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 centered on unity as a result of he has seen now that the opportunity of a regional struggle is actual and that’s why he’s asking Muslims to be united, to by some means remove this menace as a standard motion, so a regional struggle may be aborted.”
Khamenei final led Friday prayers after the US killed revered basic 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 basic from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On Tuesday, Israel launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, an growth of the struggle 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, almost all missiles had been intercepted by Israel or its allies, in line with Israeli authorities.
Early on Friday, Israel hit Beirut with a barrage of assaults reportedly concentrating on senior Hezbollah determine Hashem Safieddine, a putative successor to Nasrallah.
There was no remark from Israel or Hezbollah on his destiny.
Tehran has advised the US through an middleman that any Israeli assault in opposition to Iran would meet an “unconventional response” that features concentrating on infrastructure, in line with an Iranian official who spoke to Al Jazeera.
US President Joe Biden mentioned on Thursday that Israel’s response might embody a strike on Iran’s oil services.