Shafaq News/ Hundreds of supporters of the Iraqi Resistance factions gathered on Friday in al-Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Baghdad to condemn the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and Palestine, as well as the Israeli media's disrespect towards Iraq’s top religious authority, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.
Our correspondent stated that the supporters protested under the slogan "We will surely triumph over the Zionist entity, which commits massacres against the Palestinian and Lebanese people."
The protest had security support from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and the Federal Police. Secretary-General of the Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades, Abu Alaa al-Walai, delivered a speech condemning the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, addressing the situation in Lebanon, and highlighting threats against Al-Sistani.
Israeli Hostilities Against Palestine and Lebanon
The clashes between Israel and Hezbollah began on the heels of the war between Israel and Hamas that erupted on October 7, 2023, as the Lebanese party opened a "support front" for the Gaza Strip, where at least 42,126 people, including nearly 16,765 children, have been killed.
The cross-border violence between Israel and Hezbollah escalated into open warfare on September 23. The Israeli military launched airstrikes claiming to target Hezbollah strongholds in southern and eastern Lebanon, along with the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Since October 2023, over 2,000 people, including women and children, have lost their lives in Lebanon, with more than 1,110 casualties reported after the escalation on September 23, according to an AFP tally based on official Lebanese figures. The ongoing Israeli hostilities have displaced about 1.5 million people, as confirmed by local authorities.
In turn, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) IRI has attacked Israeli targets and US bases in Iraq and Syria as part of its "commitment to resisting occupation, supporting the people of Palestine and Lebanon, and responding to the massacres inflicted by the occupying forces (Israel) on civilians, including children, women, and the elderly," positioning itself as a key player in the pro-Iranian Axis of Resistance, which includes Yemen’s Ansarallah, Lebanese Hezbollah, and other factions.
The most prominent recent event was the assassination of Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, escalating the conflict further.
In the context of the wave of assassinations carried out by Israel, the Israeli right-wing Channel 14 published a photo of Al-Sistani, as part of a list of potential assassination targets, which sparked angry reactions in Iraq.