Iran’s allies ‘will not back down’ in this war

Beirut: Iran’s supreme leader vowed in a rare address that his allies around the region would keep fighting Israel, as he defended his country’s missile strike on its foe.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s address in Tehran followed Iran’s second direct attack on Israel. It was also the first since exchanges of fire between Tehran-backed Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops escalated into full-blown war in Lebanon.

Speaking ahead of the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Khamenei defended the Palestinian group’s “logical and legal” actions and hailed its “fierce defence” against Israeli forces.

The unprecedented Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1205 people, triggering global condemnation but also supporting fire from Iran-backed groups, mainly Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

Hezbollah said it clashed again with Israeli troops on the Lebanese border.

Early Saturday, AFP correspondents in the Lebanese capital heard two explosions and saw smoke rising over Beirut’s southern suburbs, after Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee warned residents in part of the area’s Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood to evacuate.

Nearly a year into the Gaza war, Israel has shifted its focus north, aiming to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by cross-border Hezbollah rocket attacks to return home.

Israel’s military launched an intensified wave of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon, killing more than 1110 people since September 23, and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes in a country already mired in economic crisis.

The attacks have killed an Iranian general, a host of Hezbollah commanders and, in the biggest blow to the group in decades, its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

“The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms, and will win,” Khamenei said in Arabic.

He charged that Israel was a “malicious regime” that would “not last long”.

There was no immediate response from Israeli leaders as much of the country celebrated the Jewish new year.

Khamenei’s address came as Israel weighs retaliation for Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday, which Tehran called revenge for the killing of Nasrallah and other top figures.

United States President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s biggest military supplier, on Friday urged Israel against striking Iran’s oil facilities, a day after he said Washington was “discussing” the possibility of such strikes.

But Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump said Israel should “hit” Iran’s nuclear sites.

The US military on Friday said it struck 15 targets in areas of Yemen controlled by Huthi rebels, who have fired missiles at Israel and repeatedly attacked global shipping in the Red Sea.

Lebanon said an Israeli strike cut off the main international road to Syria, with Israel saying it aimed to prevent the flow of weapons.