Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared in a rare sermon Friday that his country’s ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this week was “legal and legitimate” and that the “resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders.” 

The public address from Khamenei was his first during Friday prayers in Tehran in nearly five years, according to the AFP.  

Khamenei said Iran will not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in going after Israel, Reuters reports. 

The news agency cited him as saying that Tuesday’s barrage of nearly 200 missiles fired by Iran at Israel was “legal and legitimate” and the minimum punishment for Israel’s “crimes.” 

IRAN WARNS OF ‘DECISIVE RESPONSE’ IF ISRAEL CROSSES ‘RED LINES’ 

“The resistance in the region will not back down even with the killing of its leaders,” Khamenei reportedly added, mentioning recently slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during the speech. 

The remarks came as the Israel Defense Forces announced Friday that Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, the commander of Hezbollah’s Communications Unit, was killed in an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon. 

“Sakafi was a senior Hezbollah terrorist, who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000,” the IDF wrote on X. “Sakafi invested significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between all of Hezbollah’s units.” 

ISRAEL BANS UN SECRETARY-GENERAL OVER ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIONS 

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday that Iran’s missile attack on Israel this week was “legal and legitimate,” Reuters reports.  (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency/Reuters)

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier this week that the Iranian missile attack on Israel was “defeated and ineffective” and that the U.S. military coordinated with the IDF to repel the strikes.  

“U.S. naval destroyers joined Israeli Air Defense units in firing interceptors to shoot down inbound missiles. President Biden and Vice President Harris monitored the attack and the response from the White House Situation Room, joined in person and remotely by their national security team,” Sullivan said during a briefing.  

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets during the missile attack, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)

“This is a significant escalation by Iran, a significant event, and it is equally significant that we were able to step up with Israel and create a situation in which no one was killed in this attack in Israel… We are now going to look at what the appropriate next steps are to secure, first and foremost, American interests and then to promote stability to the maximum extent possible as we go forward,” he added. 

Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan contributed to this report. 

Thousands of people have staged protests in capitals across Europe in support of Palestine in the run-up to the first anniversary of the war on 7 October.

Huge rallies took place in several major European cities, with rallies expected to continue over the weekend and peak on Monday, the date of the anniversary.

Italy

In Rome, several thousand demonstrated peacefully until a smaller group tried to push the rally toward the centre of the city, in spite of a ban by local authorities who refused to authorize protests, citing security concerns.

Some protesters, dressed in black and with their faces covered threw stones, bottles and paper bombs at the police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons, eventually dispersing the crowd.

At least 30 law enforcement officers and three demonstrators were injured in the clashes, local media reported.

The rally in Rome had been calm earlier, with people chanting “Free Palestine, Free Lebanon,” waving Palestinian flags and holding banners calling for an immediate stop to the conflict.

United Kingdom

In London, thousands marched through the capital to Downing Street amid a heavy police presence.

The atmosphere was tense as pro-Palestinian protesters and counterdemonstrators, some holding Israeli flags, passed one another.

Scuffles broke out as police officers pushed back activists trying to get past a cordon.

At least 17 people were arrested on suspicion of public order offences, supporting a proscribed organisation and assault, the Metropolitan Police said.

Spain

Thousands also took to the streets of Madrid to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

The protests were peaceful and there were no reported incidents of altercations with police.

“Outrage at this situation, thousands and thousands of people killed in Gaza, now in Lebanon, there are already more than 2,000, more than 10,000 people missing. This has to be stopped one way or another,” said Enrique Quintanilla from the ‘Disarm Madrid’ group.

Germany

In the northern of Hamburg, about 950 people staged a peaceful demonstration with many waving Palestinian and Lebanese flags and chanting “Stop the Genocide,” the DPA news agency reported, citing a count by police.

Two smaller pro-Israeli counterdemonstrations took place without incident, it said.

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Serbia

A smaller protest of around 200 people happened in Belgrade with protesters chanting “Free Palestine” and expressing their anger at their government’s support for Israel.

“The main message is that we, citizens of Serbia and Belgrade, are against arms exports to Israel. The Republic of Serbia is exporting arms to Israel. Since October 7 last year, the value of weapons exported to Israel from Serbia is at least 20 million euros. We are against that,” said protest organiser, Mihajlo Nikolic.

Rallies were also planned in several other countries across Europe including Greece, the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland.

Increased security

Security forces in several countries warned of heightened levels of alert in major cities, amid concerns that the conflict in the Middle East could inspire new terror attacks in Europe or that the protests could turn violent.

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Pro-Palestinian protests calling for an immediate cease-fire have repeatedly taken place across Europe and around the globe in the past year and have often turned violent with confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement officers.

A bloody year

On 7 October last year, Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis, taking 250 people hostage and setting off a war with Israel that has shattered much of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since then in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between fighters and civilians.

Nearly 100 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, with fewer than 70 believed to be alive. 

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NEW YORK (AP) — Alex Verdugo hit a tiebreaking single in the seventh inning and saved at least one run with a sliding catch along the left-field line, boosting the New York Yankees over the Kansas City Royals 6-5 on Saturday night in their AL Division Series opener.

New York’s Gleyber Torres and Kansas City’s MJ Melendez hit two-run homers in a back-and-forth game in which the Royals wasted leads of 1-0, 3-2 and 5-4 and the Yankees failed to hold 2-1 and 4-3 margins. It was the first postseason game with five lead changes, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Kansas City pitchers tied their season high with eight walks, forcing in a pair of runs in the fifth inning. The Yankees were just 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position before Verdugo lined a single off loser Michael Lorenzen.

Verdugo’s hit scored Jazz Chisholm Jr., who singled leading off and stole second on a play allowed to stand following a video review. Yankees manager Aaron Boone started Verdugo in left over rookie Jasson Domínguez in a defense-influenced decision. Verdugo entered the game in a 2-for-34 skid at the plate

With the Yankees trailing 3-2, Verdugo made a sliding catch on Michael Massey’s fourth-inning fly just inside the line to strand two runners. The ball hit Verdugo’s right wrist just below his glove and bounced off his chest before he grabbed it with his bare left hand.

Chisholm, playing third base this year for the first time after the Yankees acquired him from Miami at the July trade deadline, made three fine defensive plays, two with the help of first baseman Oswaldo Cabrera, starting because of Anthony Rizzo’s fractured fingers.

Four Yankees relievers combined to allow only an unearned run over four innings after ace Gerrit Cole came out, unhappy with his performance. Clay Holmes, dropped from his closer’s job last month, worked 1 2/3 innings for the win. Luke Weaver got four straight outs for the save in his postseason debut.

Yankees star Aaron Judge went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts, and Royals standout Bobby Witt Jr. was 0 for 5, barking at plate umpire Adam Hamari after a called third strike in the ninth.

Juan Soto went 3 for 5 and threw out Salvador Perez in the second inning trying to score from second on Melendez’s single to right. Kansas City first baseman Yuli Gurriel threw out runners at the plate on grounders in the first and fifth.

After a day off between Games 1 and 2, the series between the AL-best Yankees and wild-card Royals resumes Monday night. These teams met in four playoffs from 1976-80, with the Yankees winning the first three and getting swept in the last.

Cole allowed four runs — three earned — and seven hits in five-plus innings. Royals starter Michael Wacha gave up three runs, four hits and three walks in four-plus innings.

Tommy Pham hit a second-inning sacrifice fly, and Torres put the Yankees ahead 2-1 in the third with a 339-foot home run just over the right-field short porch.

Melendez’s two-run homer in the fourth gave Kansas City a 3-2 lead, but Royals pitchers issued four seven-pitch walks in the fifth, forcing in runs with walks by Angel Zerpa to Austin Wells and by John Schreiber to Anthony Volpe. The Yankees had not gotten a pair of bases-loaded walks in a postseason game since Bullet Joe Bush and Joe Dugan against the New York Giants’ Rosy Ryan in Game 6 of the 1923 World Series.

Volpe’s throwing error at shortstop set up pinch-hitter Garrett Hampson’s two-run, sixth-inning single through a drawn-in infield that put the Royals ahead 5-4. Wells’ two-out RBI single off Lorenzen tied the score in the bottom half.

UP NEXT

New York’s Carlos Rodón (16-9, 3.96 ERA) starts against the Royals’ Cole Ragans (11-9, 3.14) in a matchup of left-handers. Rodón made a pair of postseason appearances for the Chicago White Sox, in relief against Oakland in 2020 and a start against Houston in 2021 which he pitched 2 2/3 innings, allowing Carlos Correa’s go-ahead, two-run double. Ragans won the Wild Card Series opener at Baltimore on Tuesday with six scoreless innings of four-hit ball.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb