Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, denounced what he described as an Israeli “massacre” in Lebanon on Saturday, following attacks that Israel claimed killed the commander of the Hezbollah armed force.

The most recent bombings on Beirut’s heavily populated southern suburbs since Friday, the strongest to target Hezbollah’s heartland since Israel and the group last went to war in 2006, have left 91 people wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The preliminary toll from the strikes is six dead.

According to Lebanon’s health ministry, hundreds of people have died as a result of Israeli airstrikes since Monday, the bloodiest day of bloodshed since the country’s civil war (1975–1990), as cross-border gunfire between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified.

Without addressing the fate of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Khamenei said in a statement, “The massacre of the defenceless people in Lebanon once again revealed the ferocity of the Zionist rabid dog to everyone, and proved the short-sighted and stupid policy of the leaders of the usurping regime.”

The Israeli military claimed on Saturday that Nasrallah had died in an Israeli strike on Beirut the night before, but Iran-trained and -funded Hezbollah had not confirmed the news.

On the condition of anonymity, a source close to the group told AFP that they had not spoken to Nasrallah since Friday night.

While he did not specifically address Nasrallah in his remarks, Khamenei claimed that Israel was “too weak to cause significant damage to the solid construction of Hezbollah.”

He urged the “Axis of Resistance,” armed organisations operating around the Middle East with ties to Iran that have attacked Israel and its US allies, to support Hezbollah.

According to Khamenei, “Lebanon will make the aggressor and the evil enemy regretful.”