Iran: Hezbollah will hit ‘broader, deeper’ Israeli targets
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations says Hezbollah’s response to the recent Israeli assassination of one of its top commanders will be a much “broader and deeper” attack on targets.
The mission made the statement in response to queries on the quality of Hezbollah’s retaliation against the illegal entity’s targeted killing of Fuad Shukr, who lost his life alongside several others in an Israeli airstrike on a building in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh on Tuesday.
“Until now, Hezbollah and the regime have, in an unwritten understanding, practically adhered to certain limits in their military operations, meaning that confining their actions to border areas and shallow zones, targeting primarily military objectives,” a spokesperson for the mission said on Friday night.
“However, the Israeli regime’s attack on Dahieh in Beirut and the targeting of a residential building marked a deviation from these boundaries. We anticipate that, in its response, Hezbollah will choose both broader and deeper targets, and will not restrict itself solely to military targets and means.”
Asked to clarify where these targets might be, the spokesperson stressed that they would be “within” the Israeli-occupied territories.
Shukr, who had an important role in the formation and consolidation of the resistance front against the Israeli occupation, was martyred along with two children and two women in the attack on a residential apartment in Dahieh.
Hamas vows that the Israeli regime’s recent assassination of a senior Hezbollah commander will not deter the regional resistance forces from staying the course.
In a fiery speech broadcast at the funeral of Shukr on Thursday, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said Israel had “crossed a red line” and must brace for a stern response from the resistance.
While offering his condolences to the families of those martyred in the bombing, Nasrallah vowed during his hour-long address that Hezbollah would avenge the blood of Shukr with an “inevitable retaliation” against the Israeli regime and that Tel Aviv must expect “rage and revenge on all the fronts supporting Gaza.”
At least 39,480 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 91,128 people wounded in Israel’s genocidal war against the besieged Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.
Israel’s assassination of Shukr comes amid heightened tensions following the Israeli targeted killing of Palestinian resistance movement Hamas’s Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has warned the regime of a “harsh response” for the assassination, saying it is the Islamic Republic’s duty to avenge the blood of the resistance leader.
