Iranian Supreme Leader calls on Islamic nations to step up the anti-Israel struggle during Friday prayers attended by thousands IRGC will attack Zionist energy facilities if West Jerusalem retaliates
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared in public on Friday for the first time since Iran’s missile attack on Israel, describing it as legitimate punishment for what he called Israeli crimes and calling for more anti-Israel struggle.
Delivering his first Friday prayers sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei said Israel’s adversaries in the region should “double your efforts and capabilities… and resist the aggressive enemy”.
“God willing, we will destroy Israel.”
The deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s most powerful military force, said meanwhile that Iran would strike Israeli energy and gas installations if Israel attacked it.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during the Friday Prayers and a commemoration ceremony of late Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Tehran, Iran, October 4, 2024. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
“If the occupiers make such a mistake, we will target all their energy sources, installations and all refineries and gas fields,” the semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Ali Fadavi as saying.
Speaking alternately in Arabic and Persian, Khamenei eulogised Nasrallah, Iran’s top paramilitary ally in the region, and said the focus of the U.S. and its allies was to preserve the security of Israel as a cover for seizing the region’s resources.
People attend the Friday Prayers and a commemoration ceremony of late Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Tehran, Iran, October 4, 2024. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
“Our resistant people in Lebanon and Palestine, all these testimonies and spilled blood will not shake your will, but rather strengthen your steadfastness”, Khamenei said.
“Israel pretends to win through assassinations, destruction, bombing and killing of civilians. This behaviour increased the resistance’s motivation”, Khamenei added. “This reality shows us that every strike launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity.”
Every now and then his hand grasped the barrel of a rifle that stood to his left, a custom that has been followed by Friday prayer leaders across the country for decades.
Khamenei said Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday was “legal and legitimate” and was the minimum punishment for what he called Israel’s crimes.
Khamenei told the large crowd that Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel, adding that the missile attack on Israel was “legal and legitimate.”
Source X/RT/Reuters/AP