Hezbollah chief says Hamas leader’s assassination will not go unpunished
The secretary general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement says the assassination of a senior leader of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas in the Lebanese capital of Beirut will not go unpunished.
In a televised speech delivered on Wednesday, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah offered his condolences on the martyrdom of the deputy head of the Hamas politburo, Saleh al-Arouri, and five of his comrades who were killed a day earlier in a drone strike on their office in southern Beirut.
Nasrallah called Arouri “a brother” and “a grand commander” and said his assassination on the Lebanese soil was “a blatant attack” by the Zionist regime.
He said that those behind the assassination of Arouri would receive a punishment as he hinted at attacks by resistance groups in Palestine and other Arab countries in the region, including in Lebanon, on targets controlled by the Israeli regime and its allies.
“This dangerous crime will not go unanswered and unpunished” he added.
Nasrallah said that the direct attack to kill Arouri on Dahieh, a suburb in south of Beirut where Hezbollah has a foothold, was unprecedented since 2006 when Hezbollah and Israel were involved in a major war.
He, however, warned that any direct attack on Lebanon amid the ongoing conflict in Palestine will be met with a harsh response.
“Should the enemy think of waging a war on Lebanon, we will not abide by any rules,” said the Hezbollah leader while reiterating warnings issued by US officials to Israeli authorities that a new confrontation with Hezbollah will be costly.
Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since early October when the Israeli regime launched a full-scale military campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli targets are aimed at forcing the regime to end the aggression that has left more than 22,000 people dead in Gaza.
In his Wednesday’s remarks, Nasrallah also said that Israel is hiding the casualties it has suffered in clashes with Hezbollah while describing the operations against the Israeli regime as “effective.”
He also said that neither the Israeli regime nor the United States were able to achieve any results from the ongoing aggression against Palestine and their operations across the region.
“The Americans have left the region without achieving a result,” he said, while referring to reports suggesting that a US navy destroyer had left regional waters in recent days.
