Hezbollah’s leader on Friday said the group had the right to respond to Israel’s assassination of its top military chief in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs days ago.
In a televised speech, Naim Qassem called the killing of Haytham Ali Tabtabai “a blatant aggression and a heinous crime”, adding that his group had “the right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that”.
Qassem insisted that the Iran-backed group has respected the November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities with Israel, calling for an end to persistent Israeli strikes on the country.
“Do you expect there to be a war later? It’s possible at some point, yes, that possibility exists,” Qassem said, referring to increased fears in Lebanon of a renewed, broader war.
He noted, hoever, that a wider conflict may still be avoided “because Israel is weighing its options, and America is weighing its options as well”.
Tabtabai was in a meeting with four of his aides “to prepare for future actions” when he was struck, Qassem said.
He was the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since the truce, during which Israel has kept up strikes and said it has targeted numerous members of the group.
His assassination came as Israel has intensified attacks on Lebanon, vowing that it would not allow Hezbollah to rearm.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps called for “revenge” after Tabtabai’s killing.
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