TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that Israel’s killing of top Hezbollah commanders couldn’t bring the Iran-backed Lebanese group to its knees.

“Some of the effective and valuable forces of Hezbollah were martyred, which undoubtedly caused damage to Hezbollah, but this was not the sort of damage that could bring the group to its knees,” he said in a meeting with military personnel and veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

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“The organisational and human strength of Hezbollah is much more than that. Their authority, capabilities and strength are much more than that and cannot be seriously affected by these martyrdoms.”

The Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October, after Palestinian group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel.

The violence has escalated dramatically since last week after coordinated sabotage attacks targeting Hezbollah communication devices killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000.

On Wednesday, Israeli warplanes bombed Hezbollah targets for a third day, after air raids earlier this week killed at least 558 people in the deadliest day of violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Hezbollah also said it had fired a ballistic missile at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with the Israeli military describing the launch as unprecedented.

Khamenei said Hezbollah had “protected” Gaza since the start of the conflict.

“Until today, the victory has been for the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah,” Khamenei said. “The final victory in this battle will belong to the resistance front and Hezbollah.”