BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, Oct 4,2024: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Iran and its regional allies will not back down from Israel after an Israeli attack on Beirut that is thought to have targeted the heir apparent to Tehran-backed Hezbollah’s slain leader.
Iran raised the stakes when it fired missiles at Israel on Tuesday after its arch-foe assassinated Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, a towering figure who turned the group into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force with reach across the Middle East. Israel has vowed to respond.
“The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders,” Khamenei said in a rare appearance leading Friday prayers in Tehran, mentioning Nasrallah in his speech and calling its attack on Israel legal and legitimate.
He did not mention Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumoured to be Nasrallah’s successor. Axios reporter Barak Ravid cited three Israeli officials as saying that Safieddine had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut overnight.
Safieddine’s fate was not clear, Ravid said on X.
Israel’s military declined comment and Hezbollah made no comment on Safieddine’s fate. His brother Sayyed Abdallah Safieddine, who is Hezbollah’s representative to Iran, attended Khamenei’s speech in Tehran.
Iran’s proxies in its “Axis of Resistance” — Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq — have carried out attacks in the region in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza war. Khamenei said Afghanistan should join the “defence”.
Israel has assassinated leaders and commanders of Hezbollah and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group it has been seeking to wipe out in Gaza since its attack on Israel a year ago.
