Hezbollah to respond to Israel’s strike killing top commander

Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem said the group has the right to respond to Israel’s assassination of its top military chief in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last week.

He called the killing of Haytham Ali Tabtabai “a blatant aggression and a heinous crime”, adding that the Lebanese armed group has “the right to respond, and we will determine the timing for that.”

Qassem did not explicitly say what the group’s role would be in any new war, but said Lebanon should prepare a plan to confront Israel that relies on “its army and its people”.

The Hezbollah leader insisted that Hezbollah has respected the November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end over a year of fighting with Israel, and demanded an end to continuing Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Tabtabai was in a meeting with four of his aides “to prepare for future actions” when he was struck, Qassem said.