TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran’s supreme leader hailed Palestinian militants for “expelling the Zionist regime from Gaza” and called for the “continuation and fortification of resistance and Jihad,” or holy struggle.

“The only way to confront the Zionist enemy is the continuation and fortification of resistance and Jihad,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying Saturday in a meeting with the militant group Islamic Jihad’s secretary general Ramazan Abdullah.

“Although the retreat of the Zionist regime from Gaza is short of Palestinian rights and demands, it is however a big victory that shows the inability of the occupier regime of Qods (Jerusalem),” the ISNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. He added that “with the cooperation of Jihadi groups”, further “success is also possible in other parts of the occupied territories”.