Iran’s supreme leader swears Israel ‘won’t last long’

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Oct 7 massacre ‘logical act’ and praised missile bombardment during defiant prayer sermon in Tehran

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has sworn that Israel will not “last long” in a defiant sermon in Tehran on Friday.
With a rifle by his side, Khamenei called the Oct 7 massacre a “logical act” and praised his army’s “brilliant” missile bombardment of Israel earlier this week.
The supreme leader, whose hand occasionally grasped the rifle, promised that Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas would not succeed.
“The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms, and will win,” said Khamenei at evening prayers in Grand Mosalla mosque in Tehran, referring to the recent assassinations of Hassan Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders.
On Thursday night, Israel targeted Hashem Safieddine, the Hezbollah official said to be Nasrallah’s successor, in an underground bunker in Beirut.
Khamenei last led a prayer sermon in 2020 following the US assassination of Qassim Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
His speech, delivered partly in Arabic rather than Persian, made no explicit threats of further military action against Israel, which is considering strikes on Iran’s oil facilities.
But Iran will not “procrastinate or rush to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel, Khamenei said, falling back on the regime’s long-held policies of strategic patience and flexibility.
At one point, the Islamic Republic’s figurehead called the Oct 7 massacre a “logical and legal international move and the Palestinians were right”.
Speaking directly to Tehran’s terror proxies across the Middle East he said: “Every strike, launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity.”
Khamenei has reportedly been sheltering underground since Israel escalated its strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon as part of its new northern offensive.
Kasra Aarabi, the director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, said that Khamenei’s sermon was delivered for propaganda purposes.
“The ayatollah needs to show a small but radical Islamist constituency that he’s not hiding in a bunker” and “fool the outside world by making it believe he’s popular at home”, he said. “He’s lying on both accounts.”
After glorifying Tuesday’s 180-strong missile barrage on Israel, Khamenei said that Iran had “settled accounts” with Israel for the killing of Nasrallah and its suspected assassination of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
He referred to it as the “least punishment” that Israel deserved. “The brilliant action of our armed forces a couple of nights ago was completely legal and legitimate,” he added.
Following the prayers, the deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, pledged to target Israel’s energy and gas facilities if it strikes back.
If [Israel] makes a mistake, we will target all their energy sources, stations and all refineries and gas fields,” said Brig Gen Ali Fadavi, claiming they could be hit “at the same time”.
Joe Biden, the US president, has indicated that he believes a retaliatory strike by Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be disproportionate and is looking at other options.
Israel’s defence is also a major consideration and it is reportedly attempting to bolster its air defences, according to Israel’s Kann news service, after they were breached by several Iranian missiles during Tuesday’s attack.
“This was indeed a straightforward overwhelm of Israeli missile defence. Israeli defence sites are not safe from Iranian attack, and if Iran so chose, they could choose a target that would be sure to generate Israeli military casualties,” said Decker Eveleth, a strategic forces analyst.
As Khamenei spoke, fighting in Lebanon and the north of Israel was intensifying.
Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, came under renewed fire on Friday, while Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets deep into Israel.