Khamenei: Killing of Hezbollah commanders will not bring group to its knees
Supreme leader claims US had advance knowledge of pager detonations, Biden administration ‘needs a victory for the Zionist regime’ before November elections
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that Israel’s killing of top Hezbollah commanders couldn’t vanquish the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group.
“Some of the effective and valuable forces of Hezbollah were martyred, which undoubtedly caused damage to Hezbollah, but this was not the sort of damage that could bring the group to its knees,” he said in a meeting with military personnel and veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
“The organizational and human strength of Hezbollah is much more than that. Their authority, capabilities and strength are much more than that and cannot be seriously affected by these martyrdoms.”
The Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since October 8, when Hezbollah started launching rockets and drones at Israel, one day after the war in Gaza broke out with a devastating assault by the Hamas terror group on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
The violence to the north has escalated dramatically since last week after coordinated sabotage attacks targeting Hezbollah communication devices killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000 across Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Israeli warplanes bombed Hezbollah targets for a third day, after air raids earlier this week killed at least 558 people in the deadliest day of violence since the 1975-1990 civil war. The toll does not distinguish between Hezbollah fighters and civilians.
Hezbollah also fired a ballistic missile at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with the Israeli military describing the launch as unprecedented.
Khamenei said Hezbollah had “protected” Gaza since the start of the conflict.
Khamenei also blamed the US for the escalation in Lebanon. Despite assertions by Washington that it did not know the Israeli plans in advance, “the US both knows and interferes,” Khamenei said, adding that President Joe Biden’s administration “needs a victory for the Zionist regime” before a presidential election in November.
“Until today, the victory has been for the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah,” Khamenei continued. “The final victory in this battle will belong to the resistance front and Hezbollah.”
