Beirut, Lebanon.- Hezbollah’s leader warned Thursday that the conflict with Israel has entered a “new phase,” addressing mourners at the funeral of a Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike this week in Beirut.
Meanwhile, in Tehran, Iran’s supreme leader prayed over the body of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an alleged Israeli operation.
Both deaths have raised fears of an escalation into all-out war, leaving the region waiting to see how Iran and its ally Hezbollah will respond. Iran has vowed to take revenge on Israel for the attack that killed Haniyeb on Wednesday in the capital Tehran.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s killing, but comments by Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari stopped short of a categorical denial.
“There was no additional airstrike, not one Israeli missile or drone, in the entire Middle East that night,” he said Thursday, fueling speculation that Israel may have used other means to kill Haniyeh.
Israel has acknowledged carrying out Tuesday’s attack in Beirut that killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur, along with an Iranian military adviser and at least five civilians. Israel has stressed that Shukur was behind a missile attack days earlier that hit a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, killing 12 children. Hezbollah has distanced itself from the attack, a denial reiterated by Nasrallah.
In a speech delivered via video link to mourners gathered with Shukur’s coffin in an auditorium in a Beirut suburb, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said: “We have entered a new phase distinct from the previous period.”
“Do you expect Hajj Ismail Haniyeh to be killed in Iran, and Iran to remain silent?” he said, referring to Israelis. Addressing Israelis who celebrated the two assassinations, he noted, “laugh a little and cry a lot.”
But as he often does, Nasrallah spoke in vague terms, promising “well-thought-out retaliation” without saying what form it would take. He said only that Israel “must expect the wrath of the honorable people of the region.”
“The enemy and whoever is behind the enemy will have to wait for our imminent response,” he said, an apparent reference to Israel’s main ally, the United States.
International officials have struggled to prevent a cycle of retaliation before it escalates into a full-scale war. Since the Gaza war began in October, Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged fire almost daily across their borders, in attacks that have resulted in deaths and the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. But they have also remained within certain limits.
On several occasions, attacks that appeared to have crossed red lines raised fears of an acceleration toward all-out war, but foreign diplomacy has held both sides back. Hezbollah faces intense pressure not to drag Lebanon into a repeat of the militant group’s 2006 war with Israel that left many dead and destroyed.
Israel and Iran risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel attacked the Iranian Embassy in Damascus in April. Iran retaliated, and Israel struck back in an unprecedented exchange of attacks on enemy territory, but international efforts managed to contain that cycle before it spiraled out of control.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, the capital’s largest Shiite district, hundreds of mourners dressed in black filled the auditorium, many of them carrying Hezbollah flags or photographs of Shukur. An escort of fighters in red cloaks carried Shukur’s coffin, also draped with a Hezbollah flag, down the aisle, accompanied by a military band.
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