Hezbollah calls for Dahiyeh rally as defiant Qassem slams Khamenei's killing

Hezbollah vowed Sunday to confront the United States and Israel over their strikes on the group's key backer Iran.

"We will undertake our duty of confronting the aggression," Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said in a statement, adding that his group would not leave "the field of honor and resistance".

The Lebanese group has so far not taken action since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran on Saturday.

It is nonetheless organizing a gathering on Sunday afternoon in its stronghold in Beirut's southern suburb in a show of support for its ally Iran.

Hezbollah also called on mosques to recite the Quran and organize mourning ceremonies to mark the death of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, both in the Beirut suburbs and other areas of Lebanon where the group wields influence.

Khamenei was killed on Saturday as the United States and Israel jointly launched a barrage of ongoing strikes on the Islamic republic.

Having emerged heavily battered from its own war with Israel, Hezbollah did not intervene on behalf of Iran during its 12-day war with Israel last June.

Qassem, who succeeded Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as the group's chief following his death in an Israeli strike in September 2024, on Sunday said the assassination of Khamenei and other Iranian officials was "the height of crime".

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Saturday rejected the prospect of being dragged into war following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.