Khamenei in rare sermon vows to keep up fight against Israel

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, Oct 04 (Reuters): Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivering a rare Friday sermon in Arabic, defended this week's missile attack on Israel that deepened fears of a regional war and praised allies' defiance.

Speaking in front of tens of thousands at a mosque in the capital Tehran, Khamenei said armed groups in the Middle East "will not back down" even after a spate of Israeli killings of leaders.

In his first public Friday sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei spoke in Arabic to discuss fighting against Israel by the Iran-aligned "axis of resistance", including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestinian group Hamas.

"The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms, and will win," Khamenei told the crowd at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque, where supporters carried portraits of slain Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

The Supreme Leader said that Iran and its regional allies will not back down from Israel, after an Israeli attack on Beirut that is thought to have targeted the heir apparent to the assassinated leader of Tehran-backed 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.

He did not mention Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumoured to be Nasrallah's successor. Axios reporter Barak Ravid cited three Israeli officials as saying that Safieddine had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut overnight.

Meanwhile, At least 18 people were killed in the West Bank refugee camp of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late Thursday, following an air strike that the Israeli military claimed killed a local Hamas leader.

A source within the Palestinian security services told AFP that the air raid was the deadliest in the West Bank since 2000.

"Eighteen martyrs following the bombing of the Tulkarm camp by the occupation," the Palestinian health ministry said on its Telegram account.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike on the town in the northern West Bank, describing it as a joint operation carried out by the Shin Bet internal security service and the air force, according to a brief statement by the military.

The Israeli military later said the strike had killed a Hamas leader in Tulkarm-Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi.

The army accused Oufi participating in numerous attacks in the West Bank and said he was in the process of planning another assault.

Earlier, the Security Council on Thursday affirmed its "full support" for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and said any decision not to engage with him or his office was counterproductive.

Israel on Wednesday banned Guterres from entering the country. Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared him to be persona non grata and an "anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists," citing as a reason what he described as the UN chief's failure to condemn the Iranian missile attack against Israel on Tuesday.

"Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran's heinous attack on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil," he said. "Israel will continue to defend its citizens and uphold its national dignity, with or without Antonio Guterres."

Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for Guterres, described Katz's comments as political and "just one more attack on UN staff that we've seen from the government of Israel." The concept of "persona non grata" does not apply to UN staff, he added.

Dozens of health workers killed

in Lebanon over past day: WHO

At least 28 on-duty medics have been killed in the past 24 hours in Lebanon, where Israel has launched airstrikes and sent troops to fight Hezbollah in an escalating conflict, the World Health Organisation chief said on Thursday.

"Many (other) health workers are not reporting to duty and fled the areas where they work due to bombardments," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press briefing, calling for stronger protections for health workers.

"This is severely limiting the provision of mass trauma management and continuity of health services," he said.

The global health agency will not be able to deliver a large planned shipment of trauma and medical supplies to the country on Friday due to flight restrictions, he added.

WHO's representative in Lebanon Dr Abdinasir Abubakar told the briefing that all of the healthcare workers killed in the past day had been on duty, helping with the wounded.