BEIRUT: Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to hit Hezbollah without mercy after the Hezbollah’s deadliest strike on Zionist entity since the start of the war in late September. Hezbollah’s drone attack on the base killed four soldiers, while volunteer rescuers said another 60 people were injured. "We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon—including Beirut,” Netanyahu said on a visit to the base near Binyamina, south of Haifa.
Hezbollah said it launched the "squadron of attack drones” in response to Zionist attacks, including one last week that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut. Since Zionists last month escalated bombing in Lebanon before sending ground troops across the frontier, the war has killed at least 1,315 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
Prior to Netanyahu’s comments, new air strikes had already occurred against targets around Lebanon, including one in a northern Christian-majority village which killed at least 21 people on Monday, according to the health ministry. Meanwhile, Lebanese militant group threatened Tuesday to attack targets across Zionist entity and said it would not be defeated by ongoing intense bombardment of its strongholds and leadership. In the latest exchanges during the conflict, the group said it launched a barrage of rockets towards the northern city of Haifa, while Zionists carried out air strikes in several areas of Lebanon.
A defiant Hezbollah "will not be defeated” in its war with Zionists, the group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said in a speech. "Since the (Zionist) enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place” in Zionist entity, "whether the centre, the north or the south,” he said. "I am telling the Zionist home front: the solution is a ceasefire,” he added. Iran, which supports Hezbollah, has in recent days engaged in diplomatic talks around establishing a ceasefire in Lebanon and war-battered Gaza amid growing fears of a broader regional conflict.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati told AFP that his country was ready to bolster its military presence in the south after any ceasefire, adding that Zionist troops were making brief cross-border incursions. Security has been tightened in the country’s only airport in Beirut "to remove any pretexts” for an attack, Mikati added. Zionist entity has also been intensifying its offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip, which the United Nations warned Tuesday is suffering under its worst aid restrictions since the war there began over a year ago.
Zionist entity is also weighing how to respond to Iran’s decision to launch about 200 missiles at the country on October 1. Prime Minister’s office said that Zionist entity - and not its top ally the United States - would decide how to strike back. The Iranian barrage was in retaliation for a Zionist airstrike in Lebanon’s Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian general Abbas Nilforoushan on September 27. US President Joe Biden - whose government is Zionist top arms supplier - has warned against striking Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities in order to avoid broader war.
According to a Washington Post report on Monday citing unnamed US officials, Netanyahu reassured the White House that Zionist entity was only contemplating targeting military sites. Oil prices - which soared after Iran’s attack - tumbled by more than five percent following the report. A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday took a different tone. "We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest,” the statement said. Also on Tuesday, top Iranian commander Esmail Qaani - whose absence sparked rumors that he could have been killed in an airstrike - appeared in public for the first time in weeks when he attended Nilforoushan’s funeral in Tehran.
‘Violent night’
Zionist military launched several strikes in Lebanon on Tuesday, including in the eastern Bekaa Valley where a hospital in Baalbek city was put out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported. "It was a violent night in Baalbek, we have not witnessed a similar one since” the 2006 war between Zionists and Hezbollah, 50-year-old resident Nidal Al-Solh told AFP. The war in Lebanon has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to verified figures last week from the International Organization for Migration.
Zionist entity says it wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely. Hezbollah says its strikes are in support of Palestinian militants Hamas. Despite a desperate need for more aid in Gaza, particularly in the north, UNICEF spokesman James Elder lamented that the situation was the worst since the start of offensive.- AFP