Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with a group of students in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared in public on Friday for the first time since Iran’s missile attack on Israel, describing it as legitimate punishment for what he called Israeli crimes and calling for more anti-Israel struggle.

Delivering his first Friday prayers sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei said Israel’s adversaries in the region should “double your efforts and capabilities… and resist the aggressive enemy.”

The deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s most powerful military force, said meanwhile that Iran would strike Israeli energy and gas installations if Israel attacked it.

“If the occupiers make such a mistake, we will target all their energy sources, installations and all refineries and gas fields,” the semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Ali Fadavi as saying.

Iran launched a barrage of missiles against Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sept 27, and the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

Iran blames Israel for Haniyeh’s killing. Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility.

Speaking alternately in Arabic and Persian, Khamenei eulogized Nasrallah, Iran’s top paramilitary ally in the region, and said the focus of the US and its allies was to preserve the security of Israel as a cover for seizing the region’s resources.

“Our resistant people in Lebanon and Palestine, all these testimonies and spilled blood will not shake your will, but rather strengthen your steadfastness,” Khamenei said.

“Israel pretends to win through assassinations, destruction, bombing and killing of civilians. This behavior increased the resistance’s motivation,” Khamenei added. “This reality shows us that every strike launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity.”

Every now and then his hand grasped the barrel of a rifle that stood to his left, a custom that has been followed by Friday prayer leaders across the country for decades.

Khamenei said Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday was “legal and legitimate” and was the minimum punishment for what he called Israel’s crimes.

Khamenei told the large crowd that Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel, adding that the missile attack on Israel was “legal and legitimate.”