Just one day after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, Iran’s top leader declared that his killing “will not go unavenged”.
In reaction to what he termed the “martyrdom of the great Nasrallah,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared five days of mourning in Iran, characterizing the man as “a path and a school of thought” that would endure.
According to Iranian media, Friday’s Israeli strikes in Beirut also claimed the life of a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
According to Israel’s military, Nasrallah was the target of a strike when he was “commanding more imminent attacks” and had “the blood of thousands… on his hands”.
After nearly a year of cross-border combat between Israel and Hezbollah initiated by the 7 October assaults and conflict in the Gaza Strip, there are concerns that the strike could spark war throughout the wider region.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s decision will be crucial to what transpires in the Middle East going forward.
Apparently because Iran does not want a confrontation with its arch-enemy, he and other senior Iranian authorities have not yet pledged to exact revenge for the string of brutal and humiliating blows Israel has inflicted Hezbollah in recent weeks.
In addition, Iran has not followed through on its vow to exact revenge for the July murder of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, in Tehran, which Iran and Hamas both attributed to Israel.
Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other nations have all labeled Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Ayatollah Khamenei did not pledge to hold Hezbollah accountable for the attack that murdered Nasrallah, but rather asked Muslims to support the group “with their resources and help” earlier on Saturday.
“The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront,” he stated.
The supreme leader has been moved to a safe area inside Iran with increased protection, according to two regional officials quoted by the Reuters news agency. According to the report, they added that Iran was in continuous communication with Hezbollah and other partners to decide their next course of action.
Reuters
The Israeli attack on Friday destroyed a number of structures in the Dahieh area in southern Beirut, beneath which the Israeli military claimed to have located Hezbollah’s main command center.
On Saturday, Hezbollah declared Nasrallah dead. It did not, however, address the Israeli military’s assertion that Nasrallah was killed along with other commanders, including Ali Karaki, the leader of the group’s Southern Front.
The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) deputy commander of operations, Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, was also “martyred” in Dahiyeh on Friday, according to the IRGC-affiliated Saberin News site.
Although the moderate Didban news website claimed he was “assassinated along with” Nasrallah, it did not offer any other specifics.
But no formal confirmation from Iranian authorities has been provided.
Hezbollah receives the majority of its funding, training, and armaments from Iran through the IRGC, which has helped the Shia Islamist organization develop a military branch that is more powerful than the Lebanese army.
According to the US, the IRGC is also in charge of organizing Iran’s network of allied armed groups in the Middle East, which are all hostile to both Israel and the US and occasionally refer to themselves as the “Axis of Resistance.” These include, in addition to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Syria and Iraq.
After the Houthis fired a missile in support of Hezbollah on Saturday, Tel Aviv, Israel, heard air raid sirens. The rocket was intercepted, according to the Israeli military.
New drone assaults on northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights have also been claimed by the umbrella organization of Iraqi militants, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
The UK-based think tank Chatham House’s director of the Middle East program, Sanam Vakil, stated that Iran would be “looking for some way to turn the tables and save some face” because the country’s standing with its allies was “certainly damaged”.
“This could lead to another direct Iranian strike on Israel itself, or a coordinated axis response, including from Iraq and the Houthis,” the spokesperson stated.
“Tehran is aware that this will invite more attacks, but it will choose to do so in order to keep pressure on Israel by maintaining or even increasing.”
