Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday condemned the attack in Nice, France, in which a knifeman from Tunisia killed three people in a church.
In a speech on the occasion of the birthday of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed, Nasrallah condemned the attack and said that Islamic law states that innocent people should not be killed.
Nasrallah said the responsibility for this incident rested solely on the shoulders of the perpetrator and not on all the Muslims, even if the motive was religious.
At the same time, the Hezbollah leader also commented on the uproar over the cartoons of Mohammed which are deemed to be an insult to Islam and said, “Muslims cannot tolerate any harm to the Prophet. Protecting the Prophet is a top priority.”
France has been rocked by multiple deadly attacks in recent weeks that are suspected to be linked to Islamist extremism.
Controversy over cartoons of Mohammed in France erupted following the October 16 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty in a suburb of Paris after he showed cartoons of the prophet in class.
The cartoons were those published multiple times by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the offices of which were attacked in 2015 by Islamist extremists.
Macron has taken a firm stance against Islamism in the wake of the attack and has strongly defended the right to publish cartoons of Mohammed.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led the charge against France, questioning Macron’s mental state last week. In response, France recalled its ambassador to Turkey for consultations, a first in French-Turkish diplomatic relations.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, compared between Holocaust denial and cartoons that insult the Prophet Mohammed.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)