Iran's supreme leader warns it 'won't back down' in Israel fight

BEIRUT ? Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Tehran and its regional allies will not back down, after an Israeli attack on Beirut that is thought to have targeted the heir apparent to the assassinated leader of Hezbollah.

Iran raised the stakes when it fired missiles at Israel on Tuesday, partly in retaliation for Israel's killing of Hezbollah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a towering figure who turned the group into a powerful armed and political force with reach across the Middle East.

Israel has vowed to respond and oil prices have risen on the prospect of a possible attack on Iran's oil facilities.

"The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders," Khamenei said in a rare appearance leading Friday prayers in Tehran, mentioning Nasrallah in his speech and calling its attack on Israel legal and legitimate.

More: Iran's Khamenei warned Nasrallah of Israeli plot to kill him, sources say

Iran will not "procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty" in confronting Israel, he said, without issuing a direct threat to Israel or the U.S. ? but grasping the barrel of a rifle that stood to his left.

The semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Ali Fadavi as saying on Friday that if Israel attacks, Tehran would target Israeli energy and gas installations.

Iran's escalating rhetoric comes as the fate of Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumoured to be Nasrallah's successor, remains unknown. The news site Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying that Safieddine had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut overnight but that his fate was not clear.

Israel's military declined comment and Hezbollah made no comment on Safieddine's fate. His brother Sayyed Abdallah Safieddine, who is Hezbollah's representative to Iran, attended Khamenei's speech in Tehran.

Flattened buildings, slain health workers

Israeli strikes have increasingly targeted medical facilities and aid workers in recent days. A strike late on Wednesday hit a building in central Beirut used by Hezbollah-affiliated rescue workers, killing nine, the Lebanese health ministry said.

On Friday, an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs killed a rescuer from the same unit and another on the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun hit near its main hospital. Medical staff have decided to temporarily evacuate, hospital director Mounes Klakesh told Reuters.

Israel accuses the militants of hiding among civilians, which Hezbollah denies.

In the group's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, many buildings have been reduced to rubble by a week of intensive strikes on the area. Along a main market street, known as Moawad Souk, nearly all the storefronts had been damaged and the street was filled with broken glass.

More: Spy satellites may have detected preparations for Iran's missile attack on Israel

"We're alive but don't know for how long," said Nouhad Chaib, a 40-year-old man already displaced from the south.

Israeli air strikes had pummelled the district hours before Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with top Lebanese officials in Beirut, including caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and speaker of parliament Nabih Berri ? a Hezbollah ally.

Iran's most senior diplomat also said his presence in Beirut "in these difficult circumstances" was the best evidence that Iran stood by Lebanon and supported its Shia Muslim community.

Araqchi said Tehran supported efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon on the condition it would be backed by Hezbollah ? and simultaneous with a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Iran's proxies in its "Axis of Resistance" ? Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and armed groups in Iraq ? have carried out attacks in the region in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza war.

Israel has assassinated leaders and commanders of Hezbollah and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group it has been seeking to wipe out in Gaza since its attack on Israel a year ago.

Khamenei said such actions were counterproductive.

"Every strike launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity."

More: Hezbollah leader Nasrallah dies in Israeli strike, upending region

Israel's military said on Friday that it had eliminated the head of Hezbollah's communication networks, Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, by conducting a "precise, intelligence-based strike" in Beirut on Thursday. Hezbollah made no comment on Sakafi.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Iran will pay for its missile attack, and U.S. President Joe Biden suggested on Thursday Israel's response to Iran's missile salvo, which it fended off with its extensive defences, could include a strike on Iran's oil facilities.

His comments contributed to a surge in global oil prices, as traders consider potential supply disruptions.

The United States, the European Union, and other allies have called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict. Lebanon's top officials have expressed support for one and said that world powers need to do more to restrain Israel.

More: Israel plans 'significant' and swift response to Iran missile attack

Israel says its operations in Lebanon seek to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments during the Gaza war forced them to evacuate from its north.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.

U.N. officials said on Friday most of Lebanon's nearly 900 shelters were full and that people fleeing Israeli military strikes were increasingly sleeping out in the open in streets or in public parks.

An Israeli air strike early Friday left a four-meter-wide crater by Lebanon's main border crossing into Syria, blocking the road for cars of people fleeing from Lebanon.

The Israeli military says Hezbollah uses the crossing to bring in weapons into Lebanon. Lebanese authorities have said all trucks are subject to checks and that the crossing is crucial for humanitarian purposes.

People were seen picking their way around the crater on foot on Friday, with suitcases and gallons of fuel to cross into Syria.

Israel has sought to mount ground operations in southern Lebanon after two weeks of intense airstrikes. Hezbollah says it has repelled them with ambushes, rockets and direct clashes.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iran 'won't back down' in Israel fight, supreme leader warns