Hezbollah chief says group won’t ‘be silent’ after killing of Hamas leader

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah offers condolences to Hamas after the killing of its deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri.

The head of Lebanon’s powerful armed group Hezbollah says the killing of the deputy chief of allied Palestinian faction Hamas in Beirut was “a major, dangerous crime about which we cannot be silent”.

In a televised speech on Wednesday, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel for the attack and offered his condolences to Hamas for what he called a “flagrant Israeli aggression” that killed Saleh al-Arouri.

Tuesday’s strike hit the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.

It was the first strike to hit Beirut after almost three months of near daily fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah across the Israel-Lebanon border.

Hezbollah launched rockets across the border beginning on October 8 in support of Hamas, which had carried out a deadly assault into southern Israel the previous day that Israel responded to with a devastating bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah is part of the “axis of resistance”, a loose alliance of armed groups with ties to Iran. They include Hamas in Palestine and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Nasrallah asserted Hezbollah’s “quick” action on October 8 and the cross-border shelling since then had prevented a broader bombing campaign by Israel of Lebanon.

He said there would be “no ceilings” and “no rules” to fighting by Hezbollah if Israel launches a war on Lebanon.

Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said Nasrallah’s address was a “delicate balancing act”.

“He talked about the front in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is engaged in a low-intensity conflict with the Israeli army along the border. He said that [fighting] will continue.

“He said that if Israel decides to launch a full-scale offensive, then Hezbollah would fight back with its full military capabilities.”

“But Nasrallah also spoke about strategic, national considerations that each of the so-called resistance groups in this ‘axis of resistance’ across the region have to take into account. And in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah knows that Israel can destroy this country,” she said.

“In many ways, his hands are tied. But at the same time, he reiterated that Hezbollah is not afraid of war.”