Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday that his militant group and Iran were "obliged to respond ... whatever the consequences" after the death of a Hezbollah military commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last week and the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran.
The twin killings of Fouad Shukur in Lebanon and Ismail Haniyeh in Iran have sharply heightened Middle East tensions.
The Jewish state and Hezbollah have been trading daily attacks along the Lebanese border since the Palestinian militant group Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In a televised address, Nasrallah said Iran finds “itself obliged to respond, and the enemy is waiting in a great state of dread." Nasrallah said his group was also "obliged to respond."
Hezbollah will retaliate "alone or in the context of a unified response from all the axis" of Iran-backed groups in the region, he said.
"Our response is coming," Nasrallah said in an address to mark a week since Shukur's killing, adding it would be "strong and effective."
"Israel's waiting for a week is part of the punishment, part of the response, part of the battle," he said. "It is Israel who chose escalation ... and who attacked Iran."
Israel has publicly claimed responsibility for the airstrike killing Shukur but not the assassination of Haniyeh.
The White House said President Joe Biden spoke Tuesday with both President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt and Amir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar to renew efforts to reach a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas to halt fighting in Gaza. Washington said the leaders “agreed on the urgency of bringing the process to closure as soon as possible.”
On the battlefront, Hamas says it has chosen Yahya Sinwar, one of the architects of the October attack, as its new leader. Israel last week said that in mid-July, it killed Mohammed Deif, another key Hamas official in Gaza who helped mastermind the attack 10 months ago.
In response, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said, "Yahya Sinwar is a terrorist responsible for the most criminal terrorist act in history — October 7. There is only one place for Yahya Sinwar: alongside Mohammed Deif and all the terrorists responsible for October 7. That's the only place we are preparing and designating for him."
Israeli forces carried out airstrikes Tuesday in southern Lebanon that killed four people, according to Lebanese health officials.
The Israeli military said the strikes in the Nabatiye area targeted Hezbollah militants, while Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack directed at Israel.
“Tensions keep escalating in the Middle East, bringing it on the brink of a war of unknown proportions,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday. “We all must prevent another catastrophe.
The way forward is largely consensual: cease-fire in Gaza, now.”
South Korea on Tuesday became the latest country to issue a travel warning for the region, urging its citizens to leave Israel and Lebanon as soon as possible.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant discussed the situation on Monday, with Austin reiterating “unwavering U.S. commitment to Israel’s security” in the face of threats from Iran and its proxies, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said Austin and Gallant agreed that an attack Monday by an Iran-aligned militia on U.S. forces in western Iraq “marked a dangerous escalation and demonstrated Iran’s destabilizing role in the region.”
A U.S. defense official told VOA the attack injured several U.S. personnel.
Israel’s military also Tuesday said its forces were carrying out operations in the central and southern Gaza Strip, and that Israeli aircraft conducted an airstrike in the Jenin area in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian health officials said the strike killed four people, while an Israeli raid in the West Bank village of Aqaaba killed another four people.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 terror attack that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 250 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive has killed at least 39,650 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's Health Ministry, while Israel says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters it has killed.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
