Iran expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel

FE Team | Published: August 03, 2024 21:58:27

TEHRAN, Aug 03 (AFP/BBC): Iran said on Saturday it expects Lebanon's Tehran-backed Hezbollah group to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets after Israel killed the Hezbollah military commander.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces, saying it is targeting military positions over the border, since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, sparking war in Gaza.
But a strike claimed by Israel in an overcrowded residential area of South Beirut changed the calculus, Iran's mission to the United Nations said.
"We expect... Hezbollah to choose more targets and (strike) deeper in its response," said the mission quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
"Secondly, that it will not limit its response to military targets."
The strike on Tuesday killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr. According to Lebanon's health ministry, five civilians-three women and two children-also died.
Israel said Shukr was responsible for rocket fire that killed 12 youths in the annexed Golan Heights, and had directed Hezbollah's attacks on Israel since the Gaza war began.
"Hezbollah and the (Israeli) regime had observed certain lines", including limiting strikes to border areas and military targets, Iran's mission said.
The Beirut strike crossed that line, it added.
Hours after Shukr's killing, the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in a pre-dawn "hit" on his accommodation in Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said.
Israel has declined to comment.
On Thursday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Israel and "those who are behind it must await our inevitable response" to the killings of both Shukr and Haniyeh.
Iran and Hamas have also vowed to retaliate.
In Iran, the voices clamouring for revenge have intensified since Haniyeh's killing.
US to send jets, warships
as Iran threatens Israel
The US will deploy additional warships and fighter jets to the Middle East to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies, the Pentagon said.
Tensions remain high in the region over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and a key commander of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Missile defence forces were placed on a state of increased readiness to deploy, the Pentagon said, adding that its commitment to defend Israel was "ironclad".
Iran's leader Ayatollah Khamenei has vowed "harsh punishment" against Israel for the assassination of Haniyeh.
The Hamas leader was killed in Tehran on Wednesday. Iran and its proxy in Gaza blamed the attack on Israel, which has not commented.
Israeli drone strike
kills 5 in West Bank
An Israeli drone strike killed five people in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian press agency Wafa and Palestinian sources reported, while the Israeli military said it struck a "terrorist cell" in the Tulkarem region.
The director of the Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarem said in a statement that "five martyrs" had arrived at the facility after "an Israeli drone strike on a Palestinian vehicle close to the village of Zeita in Tulkarem".
According to Wafa, an Israeli military drone targeted a vehicle "with two missiles" which caught fire, killing five men.
At the scene of the strike a witness told AFP, "I live less than 50 metres (yards) from here. We came (after) the sound of an explosion and saw a vehicle on fire" on the road towards Zeita, to the north of Tulkarem.