Leader of Hezbollah says group ‘cannot be silent’ after killing of Hamas leader

Group is ready to ‘take the war to the end’ if Israel launches attack against Lebanon

(REUTERS)

The leader of Hezbollah said the group “cannot be silent” after a Hamas deputy leader was killed in Lebanon.

Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut on Tuesday. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind the assassination.

Hassan Nasrallah warned Hezbollah’s heavily armed forces would fight to the finish if Israel chose to extend war from Gaza to Lebanon.

In a televised speech in Beirut, Mr Nasrallah called Arouri’s killing “a major dangerous crime” and said there would be “no ceilings” and “no rules” to Hezbollah‘s fighting if Israel launched full war on Lebanon.

He said: “Whoever thinks of war with us, in one word, he will regret it. If war is launched against Lebanon, then Lebanon’s national interests require that we take the war to the end.”

Top Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri — pictured above in 2017 — was killed in a blast outside of Beirut, Hezbollah’s TV station says (REUTERS)

Mr Nasrallah added that Hezbollah had so far been careful in its strategic calculus in the conflict, balancing “the need to support Gaza and to take into account Lebanese national interests.” But if the Israelis launch a war on Lebanon, the group is ready for a “fight without limits.”

Israeli forces meanwhile kept up their aerial and ground blitz against Hamas militants in Gaza and told civilians to leave a refugee camp in the north of the Palestinian enclave.

A military spokesperson said Israeli forces were in a high state of readiness and prepared for any scenario.

Arouri’s killing was a further sign that the nearly three-month-old Israel-Hamas war was spreading well beyond Gaza, drawing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hezbollah forces on the Lebanon-Israel border and even Red Sea shipping lanes.

The leader of Hezbollah said the group “cannot be silent” after a Hamas deputy leader was killed in Lebanon (REUTERS)

Arouri, 57, who lived in Beirut, was the first senior Hamas political leader to be assassinated outside Palestinian territories since Israel began its offensive against the Palestinian Islamist group in response to its deadly rampage from Gaza into Israeli towns on Oct. 7.

Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has been embroiled in nearly daily exchanges of shelling with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since the Gaza war began.

On Wednesday evening, a local Hezbollah official and three other members of the Iran-aligned group were killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon, two security sources told Reuters.

The strike brought the death toll in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Wednesday to nine Hezbollah members in one of the deadliest days for the group since it began exchanging cross-border fire with Israel in October.

Hezbollah and Israel last fought a major war in 2006 and it ended in essentially a stalemate. Analysts say Hezbollah has become a more formidable fighting force since with thousands of rockets, missiles and other heavy weaponry.