Iran’s parliament speaker reiterates commitment to support Lebanon amid escalation with Israel

By Stephanie Rady

BEIRUT (AA) - Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Saturday that Tehran “supports all decisions issued by the government and the resistance in Lebanon” with the Israeli onslaught against that country.

"I bring with me a message from the Iranian leadership that it will remain by Lebanon's side during these difficult times," Qalibaf said at a news conference alongside his Lebanese counterpart, Nabih Berri, after a meeting in the Ain El Tineh area in western Beirut.

The Iranian speaker said that “the Iranian government and nation are ready to help the displaced and war-stricken people in Lebanon by widespread dispatch of supplies through an air corridor.”

Ghalibaf is scheduled to leave Beirut and head to Geneva to attend an Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting where he said he will convey the message of oppression of the Lebanese people, according to the Iranian state-run news agency, IRNA.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,437 people, injuring more than 4,123, and displacing an excess of 1.34 million.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed nearly 42,200 victims, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Mideast was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, Tel Aviv has expanded the conflict by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala