Iran supreme leader condemns ‘short-sighted’ Israeli policy after Lebanon strikes
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned on Saturday what he called an Israeli “massacre” in Lebanon after strikes that Israel said killed the Hezbollah armed group’s leader.
Lebanon’s health ministry gave a preliminary toll of six dead and 91 wounded from the latest strikes on Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs since Friday, the fiercest to hit Hezbollah’s stronghold since Israel and the group last went to war in 2006.
Lebanon’s health ministry has said hundreds have been killed in Israeli air raids since Monday, the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, as cross-border exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel escalated.
“The massacre of the defenceless people in Lebanon once again revealed the ferocity of the Zionist rabid dog to everyone, and proved the short-sighted and stupid policy of the leaders of the usurping regime,” Khamenei said in a statement, without mentioning the fate of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
On Saturday, Israel’s military said Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut the previous night, but there was no confirmation from Hezbollah which is armed and financed by Iran.
A source close to the group told AFP on condition of anonymity that contact with Nasrallah had been lost since Friday evening.
Khamenei’s statement gave no mention of Nasrallah but he said Israel was “too weak to cause significant damage to the solid construction of Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
He called on the “Axis of Resistance”, Iran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East that have targeted Israel and its US ally, to stand with Hezbollah.
“Lebanon will make the aggressor and the evil enemy regretful,” said Khamenei.
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