Large numbers of people thronged the Tehran Friday prayers to hear the sermon by Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei after Iran’s missile attacks on Israel. During his first speech after around four years of silence, Khamenei said that ‘Palestinian resistance is legitimate’ with focus on the Islamic solidarity. He called on Muslims to remain united against their enemies and said, “They are the same enemies to the Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians and the Iraqis.” He also said that Iran’s missile attack was the ‘minimum punishment’ for Israel’s operations, trying to frame it as a defensive action.
He also urged Muslim countries to ramp up preparations for a foe stretching from Afghanistan to Yemen, from Iran to Gaza and Lebanon. He also seemed to justify the Hamas and Iran ‘s attacks on October 7 and through the missile strike as self-defense.
This sermon was preached just three days prior to the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and a prayer for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who was eliminated in an airstrike a week earlier. Earlier this past week, Khamenei stated that he would soon answer Nasrallah’s death publicly on the social media website X, previously known as Twitter.
In his post, Khamenei also accused the US and the European countries for the conflict in the Middle Eastern region by saying that their presence and interference was a cause of these wars. His speech was evidence of Iran’s continuing campaign of hostility towards Israel and the west, and served to escalate further tensions on the continent.
