New Delhi:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday confirmed that he personally authorised the operation to eliminate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. The 64-year-old Nasrallah was killed as Israeli strikes targeted dozens of Hezbollah sites in eastern and southern Lebanon following intense rocket fire by the group into northern Israel. Israeli jets bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut overnight, flattening several residential buildings.

Netanyahu termed Nasrallah’s death as a critical achievement in Israel’s military strategy and as a step toward restoring security along Israel’s northern borders.

Addressing his country following Nasrallah’s killing, Netanyahu said that Nasrallah had been responsible for orchestrating numerous attacks on Israelis and foreign nationals, including high-profile bombings in the 1980s. 

These attacks included the 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed 63 people at the US embassy and hundreds of US Marines and French paratroopers. Netanyahu said that “terrorist” Nasrallah’s death was vital for degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities, stating, “As long as Nasrallah was alive, he would quickly restore the capabilities we had eroded from Hezbollah.”

“We settled the score with the one responsible for the murder of countless Israelis and many citizens of other countries, including hundreds of Americans and dozens of French,” he said 

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The Israeli Prime Minister pointed to the elimination of Nasrallah as a turning point that would accelerate the return of northern Israeli residents who had fled due to cross-border fire and further weaken Hamas, Hezbollah’s ally in Gaza. “The more [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar sees that Hezbollah is no longer coming to save him, the greater the chances for the return of our hostages,” Netanyahu said, referring to the ongoing efforts to secure the release of Israelis captured by Hamas during its October 7 attack.

Netanyahu praised Israel’s military and intelligence agencies, including the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet, for executing the operation. “We are winning,” he said.

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Netanyahu used Nasrallah’s death as an opportunity to warn Iran. He said that Israel’s reach extends across the region, including Iran, and made clear that the killing of Nasrallah should serve as a message to Tehran and its proxies. “There is nowhere in Iran or the Middle East beyond the reach of the long arm of Israel, and today you know how true that is,” he said. “I say to the Ayatollah’s regime: whoever beat us, we will beat them.”

Concluding his message, Netanyahu called this period a “historic turning point” and reaffirmed his commitment to the safe return of displaced residents and the recovery of hostages. He ended with a pledge of unity: “We will fight together, and with God’s help, we will win together.”

“We are determined to continue to strike at our enemies, return our residents to their homes, and return all our abductees. We do not forget them for a moment,” he said. 

Middle East nations and Hezbollah’s allies in the Tehran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” reacted on Saturday to the killing of Hassan Nasrallah after the Lebanon-based armed group confirmed their leader’s death in Israeli strikes.

Military officials in Israel announced on Saturday morning that Nasrallah, who headed Hezbollah for more than three decades, died in bombardment targeting the group’s headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut Friday night.

Hezbollah officially confirmed the death hours later.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah confirmed in a statement that Nasrallah had been killed, saying he had “joined his great, immortal martyr comrades whom he led for about 30 years”.

The group said he was killed with other members “following the treacherous Zionist strike on the southern suburbs” of Beirut.

Israel

The Israeli military described the Hezbollah chief as one of Israel’s “greatest enemies of all time”.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, “His elimination makes the world a safer place,” but Hagari added the group’s remaining senior members would still be targeted.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Nasrallah “deserved” to die.

“The elimination of arch-terrorist Nasrallah is one of the most justified counter-terrorism actions Israel has ever taken,” Katz said in a post on social media platform X.

Iran

Iran, which arms and finances Hezbollah, said the direction Nasrallah set for the Lebanese group, which for nearly a year had engaged in cross-border fire with Israeli forces, would be maintained.

“The glorious path of the leader of the resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, will continue and his sacred goal will be realised in the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem), God willing,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said

Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref issued a warning to Israel’s leaders “that the unjust bloodshed… especially of Hezbollah’s secretary general, martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, will bring about their destruction,” Iran’s ISNA news agency quoted Aref as saying.

Hamas

Palestinian group Hamas condemned Nasrallah’s assassination “in the strongest terms” and criticised the strikes on southern Beirut as “barbaric Zionist aggression and targeting of residential buildings”.

“We consider it a cowardly terrorist act,” the group said in a statement that offered “condolences, and solidarity with the brothers in Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon on the martyrdom of… Nasrallah”.

The Hezbollah chief had said his fighters’ rocket fire over the border into Israel was in “support” of Hamas.

Yemen’s Huthis

Yemen’s Huthi rebels said Nasrallah’s killing would strengthen their determination to confront their Israeli foes.

“The martyrdom of… Hassan Nasrallah will increase the flame of sacrifice, the heat of enthusiasm, the strength of resolve,” the rebels’ leadership council said in a statement, vowing to achieve “victory and the demise of the Israeli enemy”.

Iraq

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani condemned the slaying of the Hezbollah chief as a “crime that shows the Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines”.

In a statement, he called the Israeli strikes on south Beirut a “shameful attack” and described Nasrallah as “a martyr on the path of the righteous”.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)