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The Israeli military said on Saturday that the country is on “high alert” for possible retaliation after confirmation that Friday’s airstrike in Beirut killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Nasrallah was one of the most prominent figures in the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance” and had been head of the militant group since 1992. His death has fanned fears of a wider war in the Middle East, which has seen hostilities increase over the past week.
“Our forces are on high alert, our intelligence is up,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told a media briefing Saturday after the military announced it had killed Nasrallah in the bombings on Friday.
Israel carried out the airstrike as Hezbollah’s leaders met at their headquarters in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. The IDF said Ali Karaki, in charge of Hezbollah’s southern front, was also killed in the strike along with other senior commanders.
The militant group, confirming Nasrallah’s death, vowed to “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslims “to stand by the people of Lebanon and the proud Hezbollah with whatever means they have,” Iranian state media reported. “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront,” he said.
“The blood of the martyr shall not go unavenged,” Khamenei added later in a statement read on state television in which he announced five days of mourning.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Saturday said “the resistance will not be broken” in reaction to Nasrallah’s killing. “The Jihadist spirit of the Mujahideen brothers in Lebanon and on all fronts of support will grow stronger and bigger,” the group said in a statement, according to a Reuters report.
The Israeli military said this week that it was preparing for a possible occupation of territory in Lebanon, and has sent two brigades to northern Israel to train for a potential ground invasion.
“Are we ready for a wider escalation? Yes,” Shoshani told reporters on Saturday. “We’ve been in a wider escalation, a multi-front war, for a year,” since Hamas militants attacked Israel last October and killed 1,200 people. Hezbollah started its rocket fire against Israel the next day.
“Hezbollah has been escalating this for a year … Iran is obviously behind this, it’s no secret. They’re backing Hamas, they’re backing Hezbollah and other proxies. They even attacked us directly in April,” Shoshani said.
