AFP, BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah
warned Thursday that the group was bound to respond to Israel’s killing of its
top military commander, saying his death and that of the Hamas leader “crossed”
red lines.
“The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable
response,” he said in a speech broadcast at the funeral of Hezbollah military
commander Fuad Shukr.
“You do not know what red lines you crossed,” he said, addressing Israel
after separate strikes in Beirut and Tehran killed Shukr and Hamas political
leader Ismail Haniyeh, describing the latter’s killing as a “dangerous
assassination”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel was prepared
for any “aggression” following threats of retaliation for the killings of
Haniyeh and Shukr.
Sources and analysts said Iran and armed groups it backs were preparing
coordinated action meant to deter Israel but avert all-out war, after losing
two major figures in less than 24 hours.
Nasrallah warned the group will deliver “a real response, not a symbolic”
one.
Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s killing but it announced that it had
“eliminated” Shukr, describing him as Hezbollah’s “most senior military
commander” and Nasrallah’s “right-hand man”.
It also blamed him for carrying out a weekend rocket attack on the
Israeli-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children, which Hezbollah denies.
Shukr, who used the nom de guerre Hajj Mohsen, led operations in south
Lebanon, where the group says it has opened a “support front”, exchanging
near-daily fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza in October.
“We, on all the support fronts, have entered a new phase,” Nasrallah said,
referring to Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups that have targeted Israel
in support of Hamas after the Palestinian group launched an October 7 attack on
Israel, triggering the war.
“The battle is open on all fronts,” he said, adding: “Our escalation will
depend on the enemy’s behaviour and reaction”.
Nasrallah said that Hezbollah, which has not claimed any new attacks since
Shukr’s killing, would resume operations along the border on Friday morning,
but that those would not be part of its response to the killings of Shukr and
Haniyeh.
“What happened in the suburb was an aggression, not just an assassination,”
Nasrallah said, insisting Israel targeted “a civilian building, not a military
base” and “killed civilians”.
The strike on the Beirut suburb, an overcrowded residential area that is
also a Hezbollah bastion, also killed three women and two children, the
Lebanese health ministry said.
