People fleeing Lebanon due to continuing Israeli air strikes carry their belongings after an Israeli strike at the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, in Lebanon, on Oct. 4.Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has defended his country’s missile attack on Israel this week as the “minimum punishment” for what Israel has done in Gaza and Lebanon and hinted that Iran could do it again, as the threat of a regionwide conflict continues to grow.
Ayatollah Khamenei was speaking at Friday prayers in Tehran, three days after Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli cities. He praised the attack and said “it will be done in the future again if it becomes necessary.”
Israel is expected to strike back. While U.S. president Joe Biden had suggested that the retaliation could target Iranian oil infrastructure, he told a White House briefing on Friday that Israel should consider alternatives.
“The Israelis have not concluded what they are going to do in terms of a strike. That’s under discussion,” Mr. Biden said. Ayatollah Khamenei called upon the Islamic world to unite against Israel, vowing the Jewish state “will finally be wiped off the Earth.”
Israel continued to pound targets across Lebanon Friday, including an overnight strike on the main border crossing to Syria, a route used this week by tens of thousands of people trying to flee the fighting. The Israeli military said it targeted a tunnel at the crossing that was being used to smuggle Iranian weapons to Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed militia that is now locked in close-quarters fighting with Israeli troops who invaded southern Lebanon earlier this week.
Video from the Masnaa border crossing showed huge craters on both sides of the main highway connecting Beirut and Damascus. People could be seen getting out of their cars and carrying their possessions as they continued toward the border on foot.
A series of massive explosions also hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, very close to Rafic Hariri International Airport, which continues to function with only Lebanon’s own Middle East Airlines flying in and out. As of Friday, all flights out of the country were sold out for the next two weeks on the airline’s website.
The Israeli strikes on the Beirut suburbs were reportedly targeting Hashem Safieddine, presumed to be the new leader of Hezbollah after Israel’s Sept. 27 assassination of Hassan Nasrallah. Mr. Safieddine’s fate was not immediately clear.
At least 37 Lebanese were killed in the previous 24 hours of air strikes, the country’s Ministry of Health said Friday morning.
Three hospitals in southern Beirut announced Friday that the air strikes had forced them to suspend operations. Eight paramedics – four in the capital, four in the southern town of Marjayoun – were among those killed Friday.
Beirut residents reeling after Israel strikes urban core
Israel says it has killed 250 Hezbollah fighters since the ground incursion began Tuesday. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Hassan Jouni, a retired brigadier-general and former deputy chief of staff in the Lebanese Armed Forces, said there is no doubt Hezbollah was badly damaged by relentless Israeli attacks and the loss of the group’s leader. But it would be wrong to count them out as a fighting force, he said.
“The psychological impact of losing Nasrallah and so many commanders was very strong,” Gen. Jouni said. “That gives them the will to seek revenge.”
The Lebanese army, a national force that is separate from Hezbollah, says two of its soldiers have been killed in Israeli attacks. On Thursday it said its troops had fired back for the first time at the source of one Israeli attack.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prays during the Friday Prayers and a commemoration ceremony of late Lebanon's Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Tehran, Iran, on Oct. 4.Office of the Iranian Supreme Le/Reuters
The Israeli military has acknowledged losing eight soldiers in the campaign so far, plus two more who were killed Friday in a drone attack, reportedly launched from Iraq, that struck the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel says the military operation in Lebanon is necessary to allow residents of northern Israel to return safely to their homes. Some 60,000 Israelis were forced to flee when Hezbollah began launching rockets and drones across the border last Oct. 8 in what the group said was an act of solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been driven from the border area since the invasion began.
Gazans, families of Israeli hostages feel forgotten as focus shifts to Lebanon and Iran
The escalation of fighting comes just days ahead of the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel that killed almost 1,200 Israelis and saw Hamas take 250 others back to Gaza as hostages. Israel invaded Gaza in the aftermath, launching a war that has killed more than 41,700 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health – including 29 reportedly killed Friday in Israeli strikes across the strip. The United Nations says the war has driven 90 per cent of the strip’s residents from their homes. Some 100 of the hostages remain unaccounted for.
On Friday Ayatollah Khamenei praised the Hamas attacks as “logical and legal.” His speech marked the first time he had personally led prayers in Tehran since 2020, shortly after the assassination of Iran’s top military commander, Qassem Soleimani, by the United States.
Open-source evidence suggests the Iranian missiles fired during Tuesday’s barrage struck a pair of military airports, while two missiles, or fragments of them, also landed near the Tel Aviv headquarters of Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad. The Israeli military, however, said the strikes were ineffective and the only reported fatality was a Palestinian man who was killed when part of a missile fell near the city of Jericho, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
There were large anti-Israel demonstrations Friday in western Yemen, which is under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia. The Houthis have also launched drones and missiles at Israel in recent months, drawing retaliatory Israeli strikes on the port of Hodeida. On Friday, there were reports of fresh U.S. and British air strikes on Houthi targets. The militia has repeatedly targeted international ships traversing the Red Sea.
Iran’s supreme leader on Friday praised the country’s recent missile strike on Israel and said it was ready to do it again if necessary, state TV reported. Meanwhile Iran's Foreign Minister warned Israel on Friday that if it carries out an attack on Iran, Tehran will retaliate more strongly than previously.
The Associated Press