BEIRUT, LEBANON – The head of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbollah group warned Israel on Friday that it will respond swiftly “on the battlefield” to the killing of Hamas’s deputy leader in its south Beirut stronghold.
“The response is inevitably coming. We cannot remain silent on a violation of this magnitude because it means the whole of Lebanon would be exposed,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
“The decision is now in the hands of the battlefield,” he said in his second speech since the killing of Saleh al-Aruri on Tuesday.
“Fighters from all areas of the border… will be the ones responding to the dangerous violation in the (southern) suburbs (of Beirut),” he added.
Aruri, who was killed in a missile strike widely attributed to Israel, is the most high-profile Hamas figure to be killed during the war.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike but a US defense official told AFP on Wednesday that Israel carried it out. It was the first on the Lebanese capital since hostilities began.
In a speech on Wednesday, Nasrallah had already warned Israel against waging war on Lebanon, threatening that the group’s response would be “without limits”.
Hezbollah and its arch foe Israel have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, but the Aruri killing has led to fears of an escalation.
Since hostilities began, the group has carried out around 670 operations, targeting 48 Israeli border positions and 11 rear sites, Nasrallah said.
Balance of deterrence
The Gaza war has opened “a historic opportunity to completely liberate every inch of our Lebanese land”, Nasrallah said, referring to 13 areas of dispute along the border with Israel.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel “prefers a diplomatic path over a military one” to restore calm to areas near the Lebanese border from which thousands of Israels have been evacuated.
“We prefer the path of a diplomatic solution done with agreement but we are close to the point of the hour glass turning over,” Gallant said.
The escalating war of words has prompted a succession of Western diplomats to converge on Beirut to urge restraint.
In his speech, Nasrallah also accused Israel of underreporting its military losses, claiming Hizbollah has released footage showing “tanks exploding… sometimes with soldiers sitting on top of them”.
Nearly three months of cross-border fire have killed 175 people in Lebanon, including 129 Hizbollah fighters, but also more than 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.
In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.