Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has shelp Iran and its regional allies will not back down aachievest Israel and called for unity among Muslfinisher nations as he hand overed a unwidespread Friday sermon.
Khamenei led prayers at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran in his first uncover materializeance since Iran started a massive barrage of some 200 balenumerateic leave outiles at Israel on Tuesday.
That aggression was in retaliation for Israel’s finishings of greater Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) figures, including Hezbollah directer Hassan Nasrallah, and escalating aggressions in Leprohibiton.
“The resistance in the region will not back down even with the finishing of its directers,” Khamenei shelp, calling Iran’s aggression on Israel “lterrible and legitimate”.
“The operations were … in return for the heinous crimes pledgeted by this bloodthirsty criminal entity,” he shelp.
He shelp Iran would fulfil its “duty” to allies in a considered manner.
“We will not act irrationassociate … not act recklessly”, he shelp, inserting that the country would adhere decisions “handed down by our political and military directership”.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar shelp the event was being held at a “brittle and fervent time”.
Khamenei’s sermon sent a message to Israel that the Iranian authorities “are not hiding, they are not seeking shelter, they are not going underground”, Serdar shelp.
It was the supreme directer’s first such sermon in more than four years, coming equitable before the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 aggression on Israel, which led to a war that has so far finished more than 41,700 Palestinians and recently spilled over into Leprohibiton.
Iran’s proxies in its “axis of resistance” – Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq – have carried out aggressions in the region in help of the Palestinians in the Gaza war.
Addressing massive crowds, Khamenei publishd a rassociateing call to Muslfinisher nations – “from Afghanistan to Yemen, from Iran to Gaza and Leprohibiton” – saying they should unite aachievest normal “opponent” Israel, which he claimed had deployed “psychoreasonable”, “economic” and “military” battling aachievest them.
“Our opponent is one,” he shelp. “If their policies are soprosperg the seeds of division in one country, they may prevail and once they seize administer of one country, they shift to the other.”
Al Jazeera’s Serdar shelp that the message of unity countered “criticism over the past decade” that Iran had been isolating itself from the region.
“His speech was caccessed on unity becaengage he has seen now that the possibility of a regional war is genuine and that’s why he is asking Muslfinishers to be united, to somehow delete this danger as a normal action, so a regional war can be aborted.”
Khamenei last led Friday prayers after the United States finished revered ambiguous Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.
His speech on Friday was pwithdrawd by a commemoration for Nasrallah, finished last week in the southern suburbs of Beirut in an Israeli strike, alengthyside Abbas Nilforoushan, a ambiguous from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On Tuesday, Israel started a ground impolite in southern Leprohibiton, an expansion of the war that has seen it repeatedly device device Beirut and its southern suburbs.
Later that same day, Iran made a retaliatory aggression on Israel, its second this year. In April, it had sent a volley of leave outiles adhereing a deadly Israeli strike on Iran’s consuprocrastinateed in Damascus.
In both aggressions, proximately all leave outiles were intercepted by Israel or its allies, according to Israeli authorities.
Early on Friday, Israel hit Beirut with a barrage of aggressions alertedly concentrateing greater Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine, a putative successor to Nasrallah.
There was no comment from Israel or Hezbollah on his overweighte.
Tehran has telderly the US via an intermediary that any Israeli aggression aachievest Iran would greet an “untraditional response” that integrates concentrateing infrastructure, according to an Iranian official who spoke to Al Jazeera.
US Plivent Joe Biden shelp on Thursday that Israel’s response could integrate a strike on Iran’s oil facilities.
