Iran on Monday slammed the assassination of Hezbollah’s chief of staff Haytham Tabtabai in an Israeli attack in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“No option remains but to confront this fake regime,” Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani said in response to the assassination.
Tabtabai was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Haret Hreik on Sunday.
Former commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Mohsen Rezaei urged Hezbollah to reconsider its policy of “strategic patience,” saying the assassination of “resistance leaders will not affect the frontline, but will create a new wave of fighters.”
Rezaei described the Zionist regime’s attacks to kill resistance officials and commanders as a terrorist act.
Israel “imagines it can advance (its agenda) through assassinations,” and believes that striking Lebanese and Iranian commanders would force nations into submission, he said.
“In reality,” Rezaei added, “with every commander it (the regime) assassinates, it takes one more step towards its own demise.”
Rezaei also referred to the recent 12-day war with Israel, saying despite the full efforts of the United States and Israel, their operations did not last more than twelve days, ultimately forcing them to request a ceasefire, which Iran accepted.
He affirmed that without an organized resistance, Iran could have faced the threats of occupation and famine, reminiscent of hardships experienced during the First and Second World Wars.
Rezaei was speaking at a funeral ceremony held in honor of unidentified martyrs in the southeastern city of Kerman on Monday.
Mourners gathered in Iran’s capital to honor the unknown soldiers killed in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, whose remains were recently recovered from former battlefields.
The ceremony paid tribute to 100 soldiers, with families, veterans, civilians and senior military officials participating. The remaining 200 bodies were reportedly buried simultaneously in other cities.
In a post on his X account late on Sunday, Larijani said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue his adventurism until everyone realizes that “no option remains but to confront this fake regime.”
Larijani published the post shortly ahead of a trip to Pakistan.
“I am traveling to Pakistan, our friendly and brotherly country in the region. Iranians will never forget that during the 12-day war waged by the Zionist regime and the United States against Iran, the people of Pakistan stood alongside the people of Iran,” he wrote.
Ali Shamkhani, advisor to the Leader of the Revolution in Iran, also wrote on X that the continuation of crimes by “Israel” will not ensure a secure future for the occupation.
Rather, he said, “such aggression will make the path of the Resistance more inevitable and clear.”
Shamkhani noted that the “fake Israeli entity understands nothing but the language of resistance.”
Tabtabai is the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since the start of a ceasefire in November 2024 that sought to end more than a year of hostilities.
The killing “constitutes a flagrant violation of the November 2024 ceasefire and a brutal breach of Lebanon’s national sovereignty,” the Iranian foreign ministry said.
Largely unknown to the Lebanese public, Tabtabai was among the new commanders chosen to lead the group after the war.
Tehran is Hezbollah’s key backer, but the group has been severely weakened by its most recent hostilities with Israel and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria who provided an overland link towards Iran.
That has come as a blow to Iran itself, which was also hit by Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear facilities during the 12-day war with Israel this year.
The recent developments coincided with statements by Iran’s intelligence ministry who claimed there were attempts by foreign adversaries, including the United States and Israel, to target Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and destabilize the Islamic Republic.
Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib cautioned that “the enemy seeks to target the Supreme Leader, sometimes with assassination attempts, sometimes with hostile attacks.”
