Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf said, “Avenging our blood requires returning the Shiites of southern Lebanon to their lands,” and added in an interview with Iranian television: “Those who fought for Iran must return to their places.” He continued: “Lebanon offered four thousand martyrs for the sake of Islamic Iran,” noting that “this number exceeds the total number of martyrs who fell in the last war, and that the fighters in Lebanon “fought for 104 days, while we fought for 38 days.” Qalibaf criticized those who were chanting the slogan “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon,” stressing that “what the Lebanese offered was in defense of Iran.”