Hezbollah vows ‘definite’ response to Israeli killing of top commander
By Laila Bassam
Beirut: Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah vowed a “definite” response to Israel’s killing of its top military commander, saying the strike had crossed red lines and the decades-old rivalry between foes had entered a new phase.
“The resistance cannot but respond. This is definite,” said Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, speaking in a televised address on Thursday (US time) to mark the funeral of the slain commander, attended by mourners clad in black waving the group’s yellow-and-green flag.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speaks at the funeral of their top commander Fuad Shukr, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike.Credit: AP
“We are looking for a real response, not a performative response, and for real opportunities. A studied response,” Nasrallah said.
An Israeli strike on Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday killed Fuad Shukr, head of the group’s military operations, along with an Iranian military adviser and five civilians.
Just hours after Shukr’s killing, the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in the Iranian capital Tehran in an attack widely blamed on Israel but that Israel has not officially taken responsibility for.
Shukr’s killing was the most serious blow to Hezbollah in nearly two decades and threatened to push the tit-for-tat fighting across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the Gaza war into a full-blown regional conflict.
‘The only things lying between us and [Israel] are the days, the nights and the battlefield.’
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
It followed a failed diplomatic effort aimed at pushing Israel to avoid a hit on Beirut in the aftermath of a strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan last weekend that killed 12 children and that Israel blamed on Hezbollah.
Nasrallah said the group carried out an investigation that determined it was not responsible for the Golan strike.
He said Israel’s attacks on Beirut and Tehran, coupled with a US strike in a province south of Baghdad, in the space of just a few hours showed the conflict had entered new phase of regional war on multiple fronts.
Nasrallah said some countries, which he did not name, had asked his group to retaliate in an “acceptable” way, or not at all. He denounced those attempts and outlined the response would be proportional to Israel’s targeting of a civilian building in the capital city’s suburbs.
“There is no discussion on this point. The only things lying between us and you are the days, the nights and the battlefield,” Nasrallah added in a threat to Israel.
Ordinary operations against Israel, consisting of the near-daily drone and rocket strikes that have taken place since shortly after the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on October 7, would resume on Friday, he said.
The retaliation for Shukr’s killing would come later.
And those seeking to prevent a wider war should work on a Gaza ceasefire, Nasrallah said, instead of knocking on Hezbollah’s door.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, right, posing for a picture with Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah top commander who was killed by an Israeli airstrike.Credit: nna\riwood
“There will be no solution except via stopping the aggression on Gaza,” he said.
Reuters
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