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Iran has warned that Hezbollah may hit “broader and deeper targets” in Israeli territory.
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Iran’s Permanent Mission to the UN said Hezbollah may not “restrict itself solely to military targets.”
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It comes in response to an Israeli strike on Beirut on Tuesday that killed a senior Hezbollah officer.
Iran’s Permanent Mission to the UN has said that Hezbollah will likely respond to Israel’s assassination of one of its top military commanders with “broader and deeper targets” in Israeli territory.
“Until now, Hezbollah and the regime have, in an unwritten understanding, practically adhered to certain limits in their military operations, meaning that confining their actions to border areas and shallow zones, targeting primarily military objectives,” the mission said in a statement on Friday night, per Iranian state news.
But it seems an Israeli attack Tuesday on Dahieh, a suburb in Lebanon’s capital of Beirut, which took out the senior Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr, may have changed this.
“We anticipate that, in its response, Hezbollah will choose both broader and deeper targets, and will not restrict itself solely to military targets and means,” the mission said in its statement.
The mission told CBS News that such targets would be within Israeli territory.
Iran’s Permanent Representative to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Fears have been mounting over an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel said it had launched the strike on Beirut in response to an attack that killed 12 youths in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israel said Hezbollah was behind the attack.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said at the funeral of Fuad Shukr that the war with Israel had “entered a new phase” and that Israel had “crossed red lines,” Al Jazeera reported.
The militant group was looking at a “real, studied” response to the attack, he added.
Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said on Thursday that “while we prefer to resolve hostilities without a wider war, we remain fully prepared for any scenario.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also warned that “Israel will exact a heavy price for any aggression against us from any arena.”
Hezbollah has been launching strikes against Israel in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas since the latter’s October 7 attacks, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel.
Israel has struck back hard against Hezbollah, targeting its commanders and infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
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