Hezbollah has again vowed to take revenge on Israel for Kuntar’s death “at the appropriate time and place and with the appropriate method.”
By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News
Samir Kuntar (L) with Hezbollah leader Nasrallah. (Al Manar)
Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah again threatened “the Israeli enemy, who is hiding like rats alongside its borders” that Hezbollah’s retaliation is inevitable.
In a televised speech delivered on Sunday, one week after the notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar in Syria was assassinated, reportedly in an Israeli airstrike, Nasrallah said “to us, whatever the consequences and threats, which we don’t fear, we can’t tolerate and forgive those who shed the bloods of our fighters and brothers anywhere in the world,” warning an attack was possible in its borders and abroad.
“They are the ones who miscalculated, not us,” he declared.
He reiterated his threat that Hezbollah would retaliate the assassination “at the appropriate time and place and in the appropriate method.”
The Hezbollah leader also hailed the wave of Palestinian terror attacks in Israel.
Kuntar was killed on December 19, along with eight others, in an airstrike on a residential building in Jaramana, near the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Israel has not confirmed or denied that it carried out the airstrikes.
Israel has reportedly conveyed a message to Hezbollah saying that any response would entail dire consequences for the terror organization and Lebanon. Likewise, there have been reports of European diplomats who have warned Hezbollah not to respond.
Nasrallah made his televised address to a commemoration ceremony which was held by Hezbollah in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, its stronghold in Beirut, marking one week since Kuntar’s assassination. At the beginning of the ceremony, a video was shown on a large screen about Kuntar marking his “achievements and sufferings towards the resistance and Palestinian cause.”
Kuntar’s brother, Bassam, delivered a speech on behalf of his family in which he vowed “the continuation of his brother’s path.” He also voiced confidence that “the wise leadership of Hezbollah” will choose the appropriate time and place to avenge Kuntar’s killing.
Hezbollah has already retaliated through a proxy organization which fired three rockets on northern Israel last Sunday, but the IDF maintains that Hezbollah will retaliate in a more severe manner, albeit not a full blown confrontation because Hezbollah is deeply involved in the Syrian civil war and cannot afford to open a new front against Israel.
Ten days after Israel assassinated senior Hezbollah operatives last January, including Jihad Mughniyeh, commander of Hezbollah operations in the Golan Heights, Hezbollah fired five anti-tank missiles at IDF vehicles in the Har Dov region of northern Israel, killing Staff Sergeant Dor Chaim Nini and Captain Yochai Kalangel and wounding seven others.
Israel can expect a similar retaliatory attack, and the IDF is on high alert for such a scenario.