The pro-Iranian leader of Hezbollah vowed on Thursday to avenge the Israeli killing of the movement’s top commander, Fuad Shukr, with a threatened retaliatory strike on Israel.
“Our answer is coming,” Hassan Nasrallah he said at the funeral of Fuad Shukr, the group’s top military commander and head of operations in southern Lebanon.
He stressed that Israel and those behind it “must inevitably wait for our next response,” stressing that “there is no discussion or debate about this,” and reiterating that “between us and you lie 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, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic militant Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyehwas 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.
Shukr’s killing is seen as the worst blow Israel has dealt to the Shiite militia since the killing of Mughniyah more than 15 years ago. Mughniyah was a founder of Hezbollah and is believed to have played a key role in numerous kidnappings and attacks in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Argentina.