The Iranian leader defended his country's missile attacks on Israel this week in an unusual speech in Tehran on Friday, calling them “correct, logical and legal.”
Ali Khamenei told his audience that the approximately 180 missiles fired at Israel on Tuesday were “minimum punishment” for what he called Israel's “astonishing crimes.” BBC reported.
At the time of the comments, Khamenei was leading Friday prayers, his first such appearance since 2020 after a U.S. strike killed Tehran's top commander, Qassem Soleimani.
Israel has vowed to take a serious response to a barrage of missile attacks on Iran in retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last week.
Khamenei said Iran would retaliate if Israel initiated such a response.
“If I had to do it again, I would do it again in the future,” he said.
President Biden said Thursday that the United States and Israel are discussing responses to Iranian missile attacks, including possible attacks on Iranian oil fields.
Biden said Friday that Israel had not decided on any targets but would seek “alternatives other than attacking the oil fields.”
At one point on Friday, Khamenei addressed Palestinian and Lebanese supporters, praising Nasrallah and saying that his proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, provide “an important service to the entire region and the entire Islamic world.” He praised that.
He also said Iranian-backed militias “will not back down” in a conflict with Israel.
Iran supports many rebel groups in the Middle East, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis in Yemen, and various other militias in Iraq and Syria. These groups that attacked Israel and US forces in the region are known as the “Axis of Resistance.”
Khamenei's emergence is remarkable considering that he went into hiding after Nasrallah's death. In addition to Hezbollah leaders, numerous other senior officials of the Iranian-backed group have been killed over the past month. And in July, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, an event blamed on Israel.
Other leaders of Iran's military wing, known as the Revolutionary Guards, have also been killed in Israeli attacks and assassinations.
