A top Iranian cleric says Saudi Arabia will definitely be defeated in Yemen as the Saudi regime steps up its strikes against the impoverished country.

Addressing worshippers during weekly Friday Prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said Saudi Arabia "will doubtlessly emerge loser from this battlefield."

He echoed a comparison by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei that Yemen is much larger than the Gaza Strip and Saudi forces are weaker than the Israeli military that invaded the Gaza Strip last summer.

“The Zionists were defeated in Gaza and you (Saudis) will certainly be defeated in this country (Yemen),” he added.

He drew a parallel between the Saudi military campaign against Yemen and Israel's aggression of Gaza last year, saying, "The Saudi war in Yemen is a proxy war. On behalf of the Zionists, Saudi Arabia is turning a Muslim country into ruins."

Israel started its latest war on the Gaza Strip in early July last year. The offensive ended on August 26, 2014, with a truce that took effect after indirect negotiations in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, were killed in Israel’s 50-day onslaught. Over 11,100 others - including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people - were also injured.

Khatami further warned against increasing hatred towards Al Saud monarchy even among Saudi supporters in Yemen and said killing people and committing crimes will not bring popularity.

He reiterated that Riyadh will not achieve its objectives in Sana’a and will rather serve the Zionists' objective which is destruction of a Muslim country.

A Yemeni man sits in his car, damaged in a Saudi airstrike in the capital, Sana'a, April 8, 2015. © AFP

Saudi Arabia started its air campaign against Yemen on March 26 without a UN mandate in a bid to restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

Hundreds of people have so far been killed and thousands more wounded since the beginning of the Saudi aggression. Most victims of the raids are reported to be women and children.

SF/KA/SS