The leader of Hezbollah has said that the Lebanese group’s conflict with Israel has entered “a new phase” after the back-to-back assassinations of a senior commander and Hamas’s political chief that risk plunging the Middle East into a regional war.
In a televised address broadcast to about 1,000 mourners at the Beirut funeral of Hezbollah’s second-in-command, Fuad Shukur, Hassan Nasrallah vowed that the powerful Shia militia would seek revenge.
“The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response … You do not know what red lines you crossed,” he said, in reference to Israel and its most important ally, the US.
Similar warnings of retaliation were made earlier in the day in Tehran, at a funeral procession for the Hamas political chief, Ismail Haniyeh. The 62-year-old was killed in the early hours of Wednesday – just hours after the missile attack on Shukur in Beirut – during a visit for the inauguration of Iran’s new president.
The Qatar-based official’s death is likely to affect progress in talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the war in Gaza, which were already faltering.
Details of what happened are still unclear, but the New York Times reported on Thursday an explosive device was planted in the building weeks in advance. The publication, citing Iranian officials, also said the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had since issued an order to attack Israel.
Israel has claimed responsibility for the attack on Shukur, which also killed an Iranian military adviser and at least five civilians: it said he was to blame for a rocket attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights last weekend that killed 12 children and young people playing football.
It has not confirmed or denied it was behind Haniyeh’s assassination, but it fits a pattern of previous Israeli targeted killings on Iranian soil. After Hamas’s 7 October attack that triggered the latest war in Gaza, Israel pledged to eliminate all of Hamas’s leaders, wherever they are located.
Also on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said they had confirmed an airstrike in Gaza last month had successfully killed Hamas’s military commander, Mohammed Deif.
Speeches at both funerals were closely followed for clues as to how Hezbollah and Iran will respond. Khamenei led the prayers over the coffins of Haniyeh and his bodyguard, draped in traditional black and white Palestinian scarves, at the ceremony at the University of Tehran.
Iranian state television showed crowds of mourners dressed in black and carrying posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian and Hamas flags and many people throwing flowers on the coffins as they passed by. His remains will be flown to Qatar on Friday and buried there.
Speakers at the ceremony, attended by Khamenei, Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, the Revolutionary Guards chief, Gen Hossein Salami, and senior members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said Haniyeh’s death would be avenged.
Members of the crowd chanted “death to Israel, death to America” during a speech from Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who said it was the country’s duty to “respond at the right time and in the right place”.
In Beirut, Shukur’s coffin was paraded through the streets of southern Beirut, with thousands of people marching behind the casket, many carrying his picture and that of Haniyeh. Women beat their chests to the rhythm of prayers as onlookers peered from balconies, and Palestine was mentioned in the same breath as Lebanon. Officials from Hamas stood next to their Hezbollah peers in the first row of the funeral.
Anger among those gathered was plain: the sound of military trumpets was interrupted by chants of “death to America” and protestations to Nasrallah. “They have to hit back. At the least, they need to hit Tel Aviv. And we’re not afraid of a war, we’ve been through it before,” said Hisham Shahrour, a businessman attending the funeral.
Um Hussein, a 55-year-old mourner, said: “[Nasrallah] will not let the enemy’s operation go unanswered. Hezbollah will respond – but at the right time.”
Nasrallah’s speech, interrupted by the chanting of thousands of supporters in Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, was typically fiery but he stopped short of announcing concrete retaliation. He said that the group would mount a real rather than symbolic response.
Hezbollah reportedly sent a message to Israel through US mediators last week that strikes on the Lebanese capital would cross a red line and result in an attack on Tel Aviv.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Thursday that his country was prepared for any “aggression” after the threats.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded tit-for-tat attacks since the Lebanese militia began firing on Israel the day after 7 October, ostensibly to aid its Palestinian allies. The conflict has steadily escalated over the past 10 months, with tens of thousands of people on both sides displaced from their homes.
In his speech on Thursday Nasrallah de-linked the Lebanese front from Gaza for the first time, saying “the issue has gone beyond the support front”.
Amal Saad, a Cardiff University lecturer and expert on Hezbollah, said Nasrallah’s speech was “very menacing. It’s going to be a huge, and most likely, coordinated response. I think it will force Israel to redraw its red lines but will be short of triggering a war.”
While Nasrallah spoke, Israel continued to carry out strikes in Lebanon’s south, killing a mother and her two children, and wounding others in a missile strike in the town of Shamaa.
The fighting in the Gaza Strip has also drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which have fired drones and missiles at Israel and US assets in the region. Tehran directly attacked Israel for the first time ever in April, after a strike it blamed on Israel killed several senior Revolutionary Guards at the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
The barrage of 300 missiles and drones was carefully telegraphed in advance, allowing Israel’s allies to mount an efficient air defence response. Iran’s course of action this time is expected to be stronger, possibly taking the form of a joint attack with Hezbollah and the other factions in Tehran’s “axis of resistance”.
International officials have been scrambling to de-escalate the vicious spiral of retaliation before it descends into a broader war.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told reporters during a visit to Mongolia on Thursday that “all parties” in the Middle East must “make the right choices in the days ahead” and said a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was the only way to break the current cycle of violence and suffering.
The UN security council convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday at Iran’s request to discuss the incidents. A statement from the world body said that the Middle East was at a “precarious point” and called for restraint and diplomacy.
