Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that his country and its regional allies would not back down against Israel and urged the unity of Muslim nations during his first Friday sermon in four years, reported Al Jazeera.

Khamenei led prayers at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran, marking his first public appearance since Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Tuesday, raising fears of an all-out war in West Asia.

Iran’s action was in retaliation for the killings of senior members of the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

These include the deaths of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Nilforoushan in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut on September 29.

Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran.

“The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders,” Al Jazeera quoted Khamenei as saying during his address on Friday. He called Iran’s bombardment of Israel “legal and legitimate”.

“The operations were…in return for the heinous crimes committed by this bloodthirsty criminal entity [Israel],” he said.

The address came as Israel is contemplating retaliation by targeting Iranian oil rigs and nuclear sites, according to The Times of Israel.

Khamenei said that Iran would continue to back its allies.

“We will not act irrationally, impulsively”, he said, adding that Tehran would respect the decisions “handed down by our political and military leadership”.

Khamenei said that Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered Tel Aviv’s offensive on the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza, was “logical and legal”, reported AFP. Hamas named the attack as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

“The Al-Aqsa Flood attacks that took place around this time last year were a logical and legal international move and the Palestinians were right,” Khamenei said.

Hamas combatants had invaded Israel on October 7 last year, killing 1,200 persons and taking over 200 hostages. Israel has since been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes in Gaza, killing more than 40,000 persons including 16,500 children.

Over the past two weeks, Israel has conducted a series of strikes in neighbouring Lebanon, killing over a thousand persons.

Since September 23, Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon have resulted in over 1,000 deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands, aggravating the country’s economic crisis, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, reported AFP.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months amid Tel Aviv’s war on Gaza.