Pro-Iranian Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday to avenge the Israeli killing of the movement’s top commander, Fuad Shukr, with a threatened retaliatory strike on Israel.
“Our response is coming,” Nasrallah said at the funeral of Fuad Shukr, the group’s top military commander and head of operations in southern Lebanon.
His comments came shortly before at least four Syrian nationals were killed when an Israeli strike hit a building in southern Lebanon, security sources and the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
The ministry said large quantities of body parts were found which will be tested to determine the final death toll.
It was also reported that five Lebanese civilians were injured when the Israeli strike hit an area between the towns of Shamaa and Tayr Harfa in the western part of southern Lebanon.
The situation between Lebanon and Israel has deteriorated since Tuesday, following the killings of Shukr in the southern suburbs of Beirut and of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital Tehran.
Before the Israeli attack on Thursday, Nasrallah stressed that Israel and those behind Shukr’s death “must inevitably wait for our next response,” stressing that “there is no discussion or debate about this,” and reiterating that “between us and you are the days, the nights and the battlefield.”
He added that they are looking for “a real answer and a real opportunity.”
The Israeli army killed Shukr on Tuesday night. A few hours later, Haniyeh was killed in an attack in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Since then, there have been fears of a possible large, coordinated attack on Israel by Iran, Hezbollah and other allied militias in the region.
“We are in an open battle on all fronts that has entered a new phase,” Hezbollah Secretary-General said in a video message during Shukr’s funeral in Beirut.
Nasrallah said the killing of Haniyeh in Tehran was an “attack on the honor of Iran.”
Nasrallah said he was in constant contact before his death with Shukr, who had trained most of Hezbollah’s commanders and was a “pillar” of the militia.
Shukr was a key friend of former Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyah, who was targeted in a car bombing in Damascus in 2008.
The killing of Shukr is seen as the biggest blow Israel has dealt to the Shiite militias since the killing of Mughniyah more than 15 years ago.
Mughnijah was one of the founders of Hezbollah and is said to have played a key role in numerous kidnappings and attacks in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Argentina.