Threats against Israel, the "common enemy" of Muslims everywhere on Earth, as he described it, were unleashed by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In his first public sermon in five years as part of Friday prayers and in anticipation of Israeli retaliation for Tehran's recent barrage of missiles, Khamenei declared that the plans of Iran's enemies would fail.
“The policies adopted by our enemy want to sow the seeds of discord among Muslims. It is the same enemy for the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Egyptians and the Iraqis. It is the same enemy for the people of Yemen and Syria," Khamenei told a huge crowd gathered at the Mosalla Grand Mosque in central Tehran for a memorial service for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Khamenei asserted that “the enemy works everywhere with a certain method. If it finishes in one country, it will move on to the next one."
"We will not delay, nor will we rush to respond to Israel," he threatened.
Khamenei: Iran's attack on Israel is legal and legitimate
Khamenei added that the attack launched by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023 was justified, as was Iran's barrage of ballistic missiles days ago against "the rabid dog with the characteristics of a wolf," as Israel described it.
"The excellent action of our armed forces a few nights ago (the rocket attack) was completely legal and legitimate," Khamenei claimed.
He stressed that Muslims everywhere on Earth must be united and called on Muslim countries to tie the belt of resistance" from Afghanistan to Yemen and from Iran to the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
"The Muslim nations must gird the belt of independence from Afghanistan to Yemen, from Iran to Gaza and Lebanon... Every country has the right to defend itself against aggressors, the Palestinian nation has the right to stand against the enemy that destroyed it life," Khamenei said of Israel.
Khamenei emphasized the rights of the Palestinian people, arguing that no international organization has the right to oppose the defense of their lands and rights, including those of Hezbollah, because it supports the Palestinian cause. And addressing the people of Lebanon, he said that they should not lose hope after the death of leaders, implying Hassan Nasral and other Hezbollah officials.
International media comment that Khamenei's speech is a "call to the Muslim world to unite against Israel", "an appearance in a clear attempt to project power in a very difficult period for Iran and its proxies", as reported by the correspondent of the British network Sky News in Tehran.
Source: iefimerida.gr
