Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday said the war against Israel has entered a “new phase,” speaking at the funeral in south Beirut of his No. 2 man, Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike this week.
“We are facing a major battle that has gone beyond the issue of support fronts, whose battlefields include Yemen, Iraq, Syria and the Gaza Strip,” Nasrallah said in his address, which was broadcast via video link.
“I say to the enemy: Laugh a little now, but you will soon be crying a lot because you do not know which lines you have crossed,” he continued.
“We’ve entered a new phase, different than the previous phase, and the escalation depends on the behavior and reactions of the enemy,” the terrorist leader said. “Today, they are the ones who have to await the revenge of the honorable people of the Ummah [‘Islamic nation’].”
“The enemy and those who stand behind him must await our coming retaliation, which will be certain, Inshallah [‘God willing’]. There is no debate regarding this, and between us and you will be the days, the nights, and the battlefield,” vowed Nasrallah in his address.
The Hezbollah leader added, “Will this retaliation come at the same time or in different phases? Israel doesn’t know where it’s heading.”
Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel “will continue from tomorrow, and this has nothing to do with responding to the assassinations, but rather a continuation of the battle since October 8,” he said, vowing to continue cross-border fire until a ceasefire is reached with Hamas.
The Lebanese terrorist group will not agree to any diplomatic solution for the conflict “without an end to the aggression against Gaza,” Nasrallah reiterated.
Shukr, also known as al-Hajj Mohsin, served as a senior “military” adviser to Nasrallah and—among other attacks— played a significant role in planning and executing the 1983 U.S. Marine Corps Barracks bombing in Beirut, which killed more than 300 U.S. and French troops.
The terrorist was also “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,” according to Israel.
His fate remained unclear in the hours after the strike, which caused a large blast in the southern Beirut Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh.
Hezbollah only formally announced Shukr’s death on Wednesday night, after his corpse was discovered under the rubble.
The Iranian terrorist proxy on Wednesday mourned Shukr as a “great martyr on the path to Al-Quds,” according to the Hezbollah-linked Al Mayadeen channel. (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 Hezbollah statement read.
Hezbollah previously vowed to respond forcefully to the Israeli military action against it, which was a retaliation for the rocket attack that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams.
