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Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has hailed “the brilliant work of our armed forces” in launching a missile strike on the Tel Aviv area, saying it was “completely legal and legitimate”.

Ayatollah Khamenei delivered a public sermon at the weekly Friday (Jum’a) prayer to a huge number of worshipers gathered at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran.

“The brilliant work of our armed forces was completely legal and legitimate. What our armed forces did was the least punishment for the usurping Zionist regime over the astonishing crimes of this wolf-like regime and rabid dog of America," he said.

Ayatollah Khamenei, “Whatever duty the Islamic Republic has in this regard, it will fulfill with strength and fortitude. We will neither delay nor hurry in carrying out the task."

“What is logical and reasonable and the opinion of the political and military decision makers will be done in the future if necessary just like it was done” on Tuesday, he added.

The prayer in Tehran followed a commemoration ceremony for Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah who was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Ayatollah Khamenei last led Friday prayers in January 2020 after Iran fired missiles at a US army base in Iraq, in response to a strike that martyred anti-terror commander Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani.

Ayatollah Khamenei described Nasrallah "my brother, my dear and my pride, the beloved face of the Islamic world, and the eloquent voice of the nations of the region, [and] the shining jewel of Lebanon".

“I felt it necessary to pay tribute to Mr. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (May God bless him and grant him peace) in the Friday prayer in Tehran, and to convey some notifications to everyone,” the Leader said.

“The audience of this sermon is the whole Islamic world, but it is specially addressed to the dear nation of Lebanon and Palestine.

“We are all saddened and mournful for the martyrdom of Dear Sayyed. This is a great loss and we are deeply saddened, but our mourning does not mean depression, distress and despair.

“It is a kind of mourning for the Master of Martyrs Hussein ibn Ali. It is enlivening, instructive, motivating, and hopeful,” the Leader said, referring to Imam Hussein (AS), the third Imam of Shia Muslims.

Ayatollah Khamenei said though Nasrallah's body has left this world, “his true personality, his soul, his way, and his expressive voice are still among us and will be with us forever”.

“He was the high flag of resistance against oppressive and predatory demons - an eloquent voice and a brave defender of the oppressed. He was a source of encouragement and valor for fighters and rights seekers. His popularity and influence had gone beyond Lebanon, Iran and Arab countries, and now his martyrdom will increase this influence.”

Ayatollah Khamenei said all Muslims are bound to “pay their debt to the wounded and bloody Lebanon”.

“Hezbollah and the Martyr Sayyed, by defending Gaza and Jihad for Al-Aqsa Mosque and striking the usurping and tyrannical regime, took a step in the path of vital service to the entire region and the entire Islamic world,” the Leader said.

The relentless defense of the Lebanese people for the Palestinians, he said, is “legal, reasonable, logical and legitimate, and no one has the right to criticize them for entering this battle”.

By the same token, the Al-Aqsa Storm operation of Palestinian fighters inside the Israeli occupied territories in October 2023 was “right and internationally legal”, he added.

“The Palestinian nation has the right to stand against the aggressors, and no court has the right to protest to the Palestinian nation for standing against the usurping enemy of Palestine.”

Ayatollah Khamenei said the adamance of the US and its allies on protecting Israel is a “cover for the deadly policy of turning the usurping regime into their tool to take over all the resources of this region and use it in major global conflicts”.

“Their policy is to turn the regime into a gateway for the export of energy from the region to the Western world and the import of goods and technology from the West to the region.

“This tells us that every attack on the regime by anyone and every group is a service to the entire region and to the entire humanity.

“This Zionist and American dream is definitely a false and impossible fantasy. The regime is the evil tree uprooted from the earth, which according to divine truth has no abode,” he added.

The Zionist regime, the Leader said, has kept itself afloat simply by being injected American support, adding the situation will not last long.

“Today, the Zionist criminal gang itself has come to the conclusion that they will never win over Hamas and Hezbollah."

The Leader called on Muslims to unite against the world’s arrogant powers and transgressors who are still following their policy of divide and conquer with all kinds of tricks in the Islamic states.

“The policy of the Qur'an is that Muslim nations and groups should have solidarity, and if you have this solidarity, divine wisdom will support you and you will overcome all obstacles and win over all enemies."

The Leader said the time has come for the Islamic Ummah to overcome the plots of the enemies.

"The enemy of the Iranian nation is the same enemy of the Palestinian nation, the Lebanese nation, the Iraqi nation, the Egyptian nation, the Syrian nation and the Yemeni nation. The enemy is one.”

A Palestinian prisoners’ rights group says Israeli forces have abducted a total of 108 journalists during violent raids across the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip ever since the regime’s onslaught on the besieged coastal territory started more than a year ago.

The Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which is also known as Addameer, said in a statement on Monday that at least 58 journalists remain in Israeli custody, including six female journalists and 22 journalists from Gaza whose identities have been confirmed.

Addameer added that at least 16 of the journalists are being held under administrative detention.

An overwhelming majority of Palestinian prisoners are arrested under a quasi-judicial process known as administrative detention, under which Palestinians are initially jailed for six months. Their detentions can then be repeatedly extended for an indefinite period without charge or trial.

Neither the administrative detainees, who include women and children, nor their lawyers are allowed to see the “secret evidence” that Israeli forces say form the basis for their arrests.

Addameer noted that more than 9,000 orders of administrative detention have been issued since October 7 last year, ranging between new orders and renewals, including orders against children and women.

The report comes as another Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the total death toll of journalists killed since October 7 last year to 175.

The government media office in the Gaza Strip in a statement identified the victim as Hassan Hamad, without giving details about the circumstances of his death.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation,” it said.

The media office also called on the international community and international organizations to “deter the occupation and prosecute it in international courts for its ongoing crimes.”

Journalists operating in the Palestinian territory are faced with increased dangers as they report on the conflict amidst Israeli ground assaults and airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and power outages.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year, after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.

So far, the Israeli war on Gaza has killed at least 41,909 Palestinians, most of them women, children, and adolescents, and injured 97,303 others.

According to a report, American multinational technology conglomerate Meta is restricting the use of the upside-down red triangle emoji, which has become a broader symbol of Palestinian resistance.

Meta is restricting the emoji on its Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, The Intercept reported on Thursday after reviewing internal content moderation materials.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the resistance movement Hamas has regularly released footage of its successful strikes on Israeli military positions with red triangles superimposed above targeted soldiers and armor, the report said.

The use of the red triangle emoji has expanded online since October last year, becoming a widely used icon for people expressing their sentiments in favor of Palestine and against Israel.

Social media users use the emoji in their posts, usernames, and profiles as a badge of solidarity and protest against Israel’s crime against Palestinians.  

The symbol has become so popular that the Israeli military has used it in its own propaganda.

In November, an Israeli military video that warned “Our triangle is stronger than yours, Abu Obeida,” addressing Hamas’s spokesperson, Al Jazeera reported.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has determined that the upside-down triangle emoji is a proxy for support for Hamas, according to internal policy guidelines obtained by The Intercept.

Meta is deleting the triangle that may be followed by further disciplinary action from the company depending on how severely it assesses its use.

According to the policy materials, the ban covers contexts in which Meta decides a “user is clearly posting about the conflict and it is reasonable to read the red triangle as a proxy for Hamas and it is being used to glorify, support or represent Hamas’s violence.”

Israel has killed at least 41,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. In Lebanon, the death toll has risen to more than 1,840 with 8,400 wounded.

The Israeli war machine ignited its genocidal campaign by targeting helpless Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip in October.

It was after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas conducted surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against the Palestinians.