Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday issued his first comments since the Trump-backed ceasefire with Israel took effect, congratulating "the great nation of Iran" for its "victory over the fake Zionist regime."
He described that the United States entered the war along Israel's side "because they felt that if they did not enter, the Zionist regime would be destroyed." He presented this as a sign of Israeli weakness, echoing prior statements issued during the aerial raids.
"However, the Americans did not gain anything in this war," he asserted. He went to say that those that attacked Iran suffered a high cost. According to more from state media translation:
“We thank God for aiding our armed forces, who managed to breach their advanced multilayered defense systems and flatten large parts of their military and urban centers with powerful missile and weapons strikes,” he said.
Ayatollah Khamenei said it proves to the Zionist regime that aggression against the Islamic Republic comes with a high cost that it will have to pay, crediting both the armed forces and the people of the Islamic Republic for the glorious victory.
The last couple days since the ceasefire has held saw throngs of people come out into Tehran streets, to demonstrate in solidarity with the military, and to show defiance and that the 12-days of attacks did not bring the nation to its knees.
There have been other signs of symbolic defiance and resistance as well, including public events and a concert by the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, which goes back nearly 100 years. On Wednesday, in the city's popular Azadi Square, reports described:
As residents gathered for the performance, the orchestra played “Ey Iran,” the country’s unofficial national anthem that has long been considered a song of national pride and resistance and had once been banned by the Islamic Republic due to its association with anti-government sentiment.
Established in 1933, the orchestra has survived multiple regimes, coups, revolution and wars, widely seen as a symbol of resilience.
Its hardest days came during the term of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the orchestra was disbanded due to sanctions, financial difficulties and negligence.
It total over 630 Iranians died and thousands were injured in the strikes, with Israel also claiming to have assassinated at least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists and many more high-ranking military commanders.
But Israel, and Tel Aviv especially, had whole building and neighborhoods leveled, and had some of its military command centers hit by Iranian ballistic and hypersonic missiles. On the other side, much of Tehran was destroyed, and the Iranians admit that key nuclear facilities suffered significant damage; however, they have pledged that nuclear energy development will continue as a matter of national sovereignty.
