The leader of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group says there will be a response to the assassination of a senior Israeli commander in Beirut.
Speaking in a televised speech marking one week since the assassination of Fuad Shukr, Hassan Nasrallah said retaliation would be “strong” and “effective”, and that the assassination could not be considered a conventional attack.
The group could act alone or in coordination with other Iran-backed factions in the region, he added.
In recent days, many countries around the world have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon, amid concerns that a possible attack by heavily armed Hezbollah on Israel could lead to a wider war between the two sides.
Iran has also vowed to retaliate after the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week. Both Hamas and Iran have blamed Israel, but the latter has yet to comment.
On Tuesday afternoon, low-flying Israeli fighter jets broke the sound barrier over Beirut, just minutes before Nasrallah began his speech.
Nasrallah, who spoke for more than an hour and a half, said the sonic boom was intended to incite those gathered to listen to him.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel said it had carried out an air strike on what it said was a “military facility” used by Hezbollah, a militia and political movement, in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said four people were killed in an attack on a house in the town of Maifadoun, about 19 miles (30km) from the Israeli border.
The four men were Hezbollah fighters, security sources told AFP. In an apparent response, the group launched drone attacks on towns in northern Israel, wounding two people.
Several countries, including the United States, have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. The country’s foreign minister said Tuesday that he was working to ensure that Hezbollah did not cause a major escalation with its response to Shukr’s death.
The Israeli attack on Maifadoun was carried out by warplanes and was directed by intelligence agencies, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement posted on social media. Officers from the Shin Bet internal security agency and the Aman military intelligence agency assisted the army.
In response, Hezbollah fired what it called a “swarm” of drones into Israel, wounding two people in the northern town of Mazra’a. But a source within the group told Reuters the attack was not part of its response to Shukr’s death.
US President Joe Biden met with his senior national security team on Monday as concerns about a retaliatory attack on Israel grew.
Mr Biden said he had been briefed on preparations to support Israel in the event of an attack, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said officials were working “around the clock” to prevent the situation from escalating.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk called on “all parties, together with influential states, to act urgently to de-escalate this increasingly volatile situation”.
Elsewhere, several US service members were injured in an attack on a base in Iraq. The rocket attack on the Ain al-Assed base was the latest in a series of attacks on the facility, which houses US forces fighting the Islamic State group.
