A picture has surfaced showing a famous Iranian Ayatollah, al-Sayyed Ebrahim Raisi, who is also a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts and is expected to be Ali Khamenei’s successor, visiting the border between Israel and southern Lebanon on a military tour.

In the picture, Raisi, 58, is surrounded by Hezbollah military commanders and Iranian officers whose faces have been blurred. It was taken during his visit to Lebanon last week and published by the Jerusalem Post who did not give any further information about the visit.

The newspaper reported him saying “Jerusalem’s liberation is near” during the tour.

According to the Jerusalem Post, he also said: “Thanks to the resistance movement, Palestine has so far succeeded in withstanding Israel, and they [the Palestinians] have learned that it is fighting and steadfastness, not the negotiating tables, that determine the fate of their country.”

The tour remained secret throughout his visit which ended on Monday, where he met several Lebanese leaders and government officials.

Lebanese media reported that the gathering of Muslim Scholars honored him with a ceremony in the presence of a large number of Sunni and Shia scholars.

Raisi's visit came days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke out against Iran building a missile factory in Lebanon.

A letter written by Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, described the visit as a blatant violation of UN Security Council resolutions, Fox News reported.

He added that the visit took place within a UN buffer zone free of any armed personnel.

“I write, once again, to alert you and members of the Security Council to the dangerous and destabilizing actions taken by Hezbollah, the internationally recognized terrorist organization that serves as an Iranian proxy in our region,” Fox news reported him saying in the letter.

Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:50 - GMT 06:50