This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used a rare public sermon to defend Iran’s missile attack against Israel earlier this week, saying it was “legitimate and legal” and that “if needed,” Tehran will do it again.
Speaking in both Farsi and Arabic during Friday Prayers in central Tehran on October 4, Khamenei said Iran and the regional proxies it supports won’t back down from Israel as fears of a wider regional conflict in the Middle East grow amid a wave of multiple massive air strikes and a land incursion by Israel into Lebanon.
Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel, Khamenei said, adding that the barrage of missiles fired at Israel earlier this week was “legal and legitimate.”
Khamenei’s address came hours after huge explosions shot balls of flames high into the sky as Israeli air strikes rocked the suburbs of Beirut, with large blasts just outside Beirut’s international airport which borders Dahieh — a stronghold in the capital of Hezbollah, a militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military did not comment on the target of the strikes, but some media and analysts speculated that the location, size, and scope indicated that it could be Hashem Safieddine, who is widely considered the front-runner to take over the leadership of Hezbollah. It was not immediately clear whether Safieddine has been killed in the strikes.
The group’s previous leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed last week in Israeli air strikes on a command center for Hezbollah, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union blacklists its armed wing but not its political party, which has seats in the Lebanese parliament.
Israel’s incursion into Lebanon, which was launched earlier this week, has sparked fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
Those concerns were exacerbated when Tehran launched a massive ballistic-missile attack on Israel on October 1, its largest so far, in retaliation for the campaign started by the Jewish state in southern Lebanon against Iran-backed Hezbollah, prompting warnings of countermeasures from Israel and its main ally, the United States.
Khamenei’s October 4 appearance was the first time in almost five years that he delivered a public sermon. The last time he led Friday Prayers was in January 2020 following an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. military base in Iraq in response to the killing of Revolutionary Guards Commander Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. strike in Baghdad.
Mojata Najafi, a Paris-based analyst of Iranian affairs, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda by phone that Khamenei’s speech “didn’t say anything new” and appeared to be “aimed at lifting the morale of his followers” and “to dispel the fear about a potential act of terror by Israel.”
“Even his comments about the Islamic republic not hesitating [to retaliate] while also not rushing is not new. This has been the policy of the Islamic republic in this current crisis from the start, [Tehran] has attempted to avoid falling into an all-out war.”
The latest Israeli strike early on October 4 cut off a road near the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria that has been the escape route for hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians fleeing the conflict in recent days, according to Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamieh.
Meanwhile, Israel is weighing its options to respond to Iran’s wave of missile attacks on October 1 in consultations with the United States.
U.S. President Joe Biden, when asked by reporters in Washington on October 3 whether the White House supports strikes on Iran’s oil facilities, said: “We’re discussing that.”
On October 3, an Israeli a strike on an apartment building in downtown Beirut killed nine in what was the first attack on the center of the Lebanese capital since 2006.
Israel said its air strike on Beirut was a precise operation, while a security source said that the target was an apartment building in the capital’s central district of Bachoura, near the Lebanese parliament.
A Hezbollah-linked civil defense group said seven of its members, including two medics, had been killed in the Beirut attack.
In a separate development, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that at least 18 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on October 3.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the strike killed the head of Hamas’ network in Tulkarm, identifying him as Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, who it accused of participating in numerous attacks.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
It’s attack on Israel on October 7 last year sparked the current wave of fighting. Hamas fighters crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people. They also took some 240 people hostage with them as they returned to Gaza.
