Ayatollah Khamenei leads first Friday prayers in five years

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei led the congregational Friday prayers in the capital Tehran for the first time in five years, attended by more than a million people from different parts of the country.

The prayers followed two sermons in which the Leader made a passionate call for Muslim unity in the face of continued genocidal crimes by the apartheid Israeli regime in Gaza and Lebanon backed by the United States.

Ayatollah Khamenei told the massive gathering that Muslims face a common enemy and warned that failure to support those oppressed and subjugated by this enemy could only exacerbate the suffering of Muslims worldwide. 

In the second sermon delivered in Arabic and addressed to Arabic-speaking people in Lebanon and Palestine, Leader of the Islamic Revolution paid rich tribute to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by the Israeli regime last week in the southern suburb of Beirut. 

He lauded the extraordinary resistance shown by Hezbollah and Hamas, despite the loss of key leaders and amid continued aggression by the Zionist entity.

The historic Friday prayers in Tehran came a week after the martyrdom of the Hezbollah chief and his associates and three days after Iran's retaliatory military operation that targeted key Israeli military installations in the occupied territories. 

In the meanwhile Tehran backs efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon on the condition it would be backed by Hezbollah, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in Beirut.

"We support efforts towards a ceasefire on the condition, firstly the preservation of the rights of the Lebanese people and it is accepted by the resistance and thirdly, is simultaneous with a ceasefire in Gaza," he said.

Iran's most senior diplomat also said his presence in Beirut "in these difficult times" was the best evidence that Iran stood by Lebanon and supported the Shi'ites.