The Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist organization formally announced the death of its top commander, Fuad Shukr, on Wednesday evening—a day after he was killed by an Israeli precision strike in Beirut.
The Iranian terror proxy mourned Shukr as a “great martyr on the path to al-Quds,” according to Hezbollah’s Al Mayadeen television station. (Al-Quds is the Arabic term for Jerusalem.)
“After a journey plentiful in faith in Allah, sincerity in this faith, and relentless resistance without fatigue or boredom ... Allah almighty granted his servant, the sincere and devoted fighter, with the noble reward of martyrdom,” the statement read.
The terrorist group announced that its response to the attack would be revealed Thursday in a speech by secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah.
Shukr, also known as al-Hajj Mohsin, served as a senior “military” aide to Nasrallah and played a central role in planning and executing the U.S. Marine Corps Barracks bombing on Oct. 23, 1983, in the Lebanese capital, which killed more than 300 U.S. and French troops.
Shukr also “directed Hezbollah’s attacks on the State of Israel since Oct. 8, and was the commander responsible for the murder of the 12 children in Majdal Shams in northern Israel on Saturday evening, as well as the killing of numerous Israelis and foreign nationals,” Jerusalem said.
His fate remained unclear in the hours after the strike, which caused a large blast in the southern Beirut Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh.
Shukr’s lifeless body was only located in the rubble by rescue forces on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Hezbollah has vowed to respond forcefully to any Israeli military action against it, irrespective of the scope of Jerusalem’s retaliatory attack.
“Foreign envoys suggested we don’t retaliate to any strike so as not to expand the conflict,” a senior Hezbollah terrorist official told Al Jazeera on Tuesday. “We will respond.”
