Hezbollah chief warns Israel of ‘no rules’ war after Hamas leader killed

The head of Lebanon’s powerful armed group Hezbollah has said Israel’s killing of Hamas’s deputy leader in Beirut was ‘a major, dangerous crime about which we cannot be silent’.

In a televised speech, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah offered his condolences to his allies for what he called a ‘flagrant Israeli aggression’ on Tuesday night that killed Saleh al-Arouri.

He vowed that there would be ‘no ceilings’ and ‘no rules’ to his group’s fighting if Israel chose to launch a war on Lebanon, adding: ‘Whoever thinks of war with us – in one word, he will regret it.’

Tuesday’s strike hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, in what analysts have said could also be a message from to the militants that even their prime stronghold can be reached.

It was the first strike to hit Beirut following almost three months of near daily fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah that has been confined to the border region.

The group launched rockets across the border on October 8 in support of Hamas after the deadly raids into southern Israel the previous day that prompted the current conflict.

Hezbollah, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, is the spearhead of a Tehran-backed alliance hostile to Israel and the United States.

It fought a month-long war against Israel in 2006.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah’s ‘quick’ action on October 8 and the cross-border shelling since then had prevented a broader bombing campaign by Israel of Lebanon, and had showed that Israel’s ability to deter such attacks ‘had collapsed’.

He spoke on Wednesday to commemorate four years since the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike on Baghdad.

He said the dozens killed in two explosions at a ceremony in Iran to commemorate Soleimani were ‘targeted’.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the ‘heinous and inhumane crime’, and Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei vowed revenge for the bloody twin bombings.

‘Cruel criminals … must know that they will be strongly dealt with from now on and … undoubtedly there will be a harsh response,’ Khamenei said in a statement.

It was Nasrallah’s third speech since October 7.

In his long-awaited first speech in early November, he warned the United States that preventing a regional conflict was reliant on stopping the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

In his second speech roughly a week later, he said the front against Israel would remain active.

On Wednesday, he said he would speak again on Friday in more detail about Hezbollah’s operations in the south. 

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