Just as the Israel Defense Forces settled the score with Fuad Shukr, the Jewish state will not hesitate to take out anyone who dares threaten its existence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his first public remarks since the killing of the top Hezbollah commander.
In a primetime address to the nation on Wednesday night, the Israeli premier again reiterated that Jerusalem is fighting an existential war against Iran’s “axis of evil,” which includes Hezbollah and Hamas.
“Yesterday, we attacked Fuad Shkur, the chief of staff of Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said, emphasizing that the terrorist commander was the one who ordered Saturday’s “massacre of our dear boys and girls in Majdal Shams.”
Hezbollah’s No. 2 “was responsible for the unceasing assault against our citizens in the northern communities over nine months of war. He was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. The US put a $5 million bounty on his head, and for good reason. He was involved in the murder of 241 American soldiers and 58 French soldiers in Beirut in 1983,” the prime minister continued.
Netanyahu in his approximately five-minute speech did not mention the death of Hamas “political” leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in a targeted killing attributed to Israel early Wednesday morning while visiting Tehran.
The Israeli leader did note that the Jewish state dealt “crushing blows” against Iran’s terrorist proxies in the region in recent days.
“For months, there has been no week in which they have not told us—at home and abroad—to end the war. But I did not give in to these voices then, and I will not give in to these voices today either,” he vowed.
Israel has “challenging days” ahead as Hezbollah and Iran have threatened to avenge the death of the terrorist leaders, Netanyahu said.
“We are prepared for any scenario and we will stand united and determined against any threat. Israel will exact a very heavy price for aggression against us from whatever quarter,” the premier vowed.
A strike by the Israeli Air Force in Beirut on Tuesday killed Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander responsible for Saturday’s rocket barrage that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams, as well as a 1983 bombing that killed more than 300 U.S. and French troops in Beirut.
Hours later, Haniyeh died when a missile hit his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guest house in Tehran. An Iranian source told Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen, which is close to Hezbollah, that the strike “was carried out using a missile launched from country to country, not from within Iran.”
The Israeli government has yet to comment on the incident.
