As Iran threatens to attack Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader in the Iranian capital, its long-vaunted missile programme offers one of the few ways for Tehran to strike back directly, but questions loom over just how much of a danger it poses.

The programme was behind Iran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on Israel in April, when Iran became the first nation to launch such a barrage since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein lobbed Scud missiles at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.

But few of the Iranian projectiles reached their targets. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed while in flight. Even those that reached Israel appeared to miss their marks.

Now a new report by experts suggests one of Tehran’s most advanced missiles is far less accurate than previously thought.

The April assault showed “some ability to strike Israel,” said Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who worked on the analysis. But “if I were the Supreme Leader, I would probably be a little disappointed.”

‘Just terror weapons’

If Iranian missiles are not able to hit targets precisely “that recasts their role,” Mr. Lair added. “They’re no longer as valuable for conducting conventional military operations. They may be more valuable simply as terror weapons.”

Iran has repeatedly said it will retaliate for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. Israel is widely suspected of carrying out the assassination, though it has not claimed it.

But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tacitly acknowledged the country’s failure to strike anything of importance in Israel. “Debates by the other party about how many missiles were fired, how many of them hit the target and how many didn’t, these are of secondary importance,” Mr. Khamenei said.

“The main issue is the emergence of the Iranian nation” and the Iranian military “in an important international arena. This is what matters.”

Retaliation had been expected for days after a suspected Israeli strike on April 1 hit an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, killing two Iranian generals and five officers, as well as a member of the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah.

Footage aired on state television showed that Iran’s April 13 assault began with Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami speaking by telephone with Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Guard’s aerospace division.

“Start the ‘True Promise’ operation against Zionist regime’s bases,” he ordered.

Grainy footage later released showed missiles thundering off truck-based mobile launchers. Iran’s bomb-carrying Shahed drones leaped off metal stands, their engines whirring like lawnmowers through the night sky.

Drones and missiles also came from Yemen, likely fired by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Israeli officials estimated that Iran launched 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.

The U.S., the U.K., France and Jordan all shot down incoming fire. The Americans claimed to have downed 80 bomb-carrying drones and at least six ballistic missiles. Israeli missile defences were also activated, though their initial claim of intercepting 99% of the projectiles appeared to be an exaggeration.

The attack “was very clearly not something symbolic and not something trying to avoid damage,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert. It was “a major attempt to overcome Israeli defences.”

U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they assessed that 50% of the Iranian missiles failed at launch or crashed before reaching their target.

The poor performance may be attributable to electronic warfare measures designed to confuse the missile’s guidance system, as well as potential sabotage, poor missile design and the distances involved in the attack.

Threat patterns

In the past, Iranian threats to retaliate against Israel generally took the form of either attacks by Iranian-backed forces in West Asia or assaults aimed at Israeli targets elsewhere, such as embassies or tourists aboard.

Geography limits the options for a direct Iranian military attack. Iran shares no border with Israel, and the two countries are some 1,000 km apart at the shortest distance.

Iran’s air force has an ageing fleet led by F-14 Tomcats and Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jets from the Cold War, but they would be no match for Israel’s F-35Is and its air defences. That means Iran again would need to rely on missiles and long-range drones.

It could also enlist help from allied militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels to overwhelm Israel’s defences.

Always present in the background is the risk that Tehran could develop a nuclear weapon. While Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful, Western intelligence agencies say Tehran had an organised military nuclear programme until 2003.

U.S. agencies said in a report in July Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.” However, building a weapon and miniaturising it to put on a ballistic missile could take years.

Beirut, Lebanon:

The head of the Christian political party Lebanese Forces on Sunday accused Hezbollah of dragging the country into a war with Israel without consulting the people.

In a speech attacking the Shiite Muslim group, Samir Geagea, who heads the main Christian bloc in parliament, accused Hezbollah of “confiscating the Lebanese people’s decision on war and peace, as if there were no state”.

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily cross-border fire with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, which the Lebanese Forces and other parties oppose.

The clashes are “a war that the Lebanese people reject, but has been imposed on them”, Geagea said in a speech to supporters north of Beirut.

“It is a war that the Lebanese people do not want and over which the government has had no say. This war does not serve Lebanon, it has brought nothing to Gaza, nor alleviated its suffering one iota,” he added.

Iran-backed Hezbollah was the only Lebanese faction that did not disarm after the 1975-1990 civil war.

Its arsenal, reputed to be significantly larger than that of the Lebanese army, is touted by its supporters as a shield against Israel.

The movement’s critics call Hezbollah a “state within a state”.

“This war, in which Hezbollah is engaged, must stop before it brings about a major war that will spare no one,” Geagea said.

He called on the government to “urge” Hezbollah to stop its fight with Israel. 

Lebanon is without a president and the caretaker government is struggling to run a country gripped by a crippling financial crisis.

Tensions on the border appeared to have cooled since a major escalation last month. Analysts say both parties are showing restraint to avoid a regional escalation.

In the latest incident, one person was killed and 11 wounded in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon Sunday, the health ministry in Beirut said.

Hezbollah announced that one of its fighters had been killed by Israeli fire. 

The violence since October has killed some 607 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 132 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.

Tens of thousands of people remain displaced on both sides. 

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

Paris:

After an escalation of hostilities Sunday amid over 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, here are the major eruptions of violence since their 2006 war.

The devastating month-long war in the summer of 2006 cost Lebanon more than 1,200 lives, mostly civilians, while some 160 Israelis were killed, mostly soldiers.

The following years saw sporadic attacks, which surged following the October 7 attack by Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas on Israel.

2007-2013: rocket fire and incursion

On June 17, 2007, two rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon hitting an industrial zone in the border town of Kiryat Shmona without causing casualties. Hezbollah denies responsibility.

In early August 2010, a move by Israeli troops to uproot trees in a disputed border area at Adaysseh sparks a deadly border battle in which two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist are killed along with a senior Israeli officer.

On August 7, 2013, four Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded in a blast claimed by Hezbollah 400 metres (yards) inside Lebanese territory.

2014-2015: Israeli strikes

On February 26, 2014, Hezbollah says Israeli warplanes had carried out an air raid on one of its positions at Lebanon’s border with Syria.

On October 7, Israel strikes two Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response to its bomb attack against Israeli troops on the ceasefire line on the Shebaa hills between the two countries that wounded two soldiers.

On January 28, 2015, two Israeli soldiers are killed in a Hezbollah ambush in the Shebaa hills.

The attack is carried out in retaliation for a raid blamed on Israel 10 days earlier on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights, which killed at least six members of Hezbollah and an Iranian general.

In retaliation, Israeli tanks and artillery bombarded several villages in southern Lebanon.

2019: drones and missiles strikes

On August 25, 2019, two explosive-laden drones hit the southern Beirut suburbs, causing material damage according to Hezbollah, which blames the attack on Israel.

The day before, an Israeli air strike in Syria had killed two Hezbollah members.

On September 1, the Israeli army and Hezbollah traded missile fire along the border.

2021: uptick in clashes

On August 4, 2021, three rockets were fired from Lebanon, of which two fell in Israel. The Israeli army responds with air strikes on southern Lebanon.

On August 6, Hezbollah fires more than 10 rockets at Israel, which responds with artillery fire.

2023-2024: October 7 attacks aftermath

Hezbollah has traded almost daily cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

In southern Lebanon, a Reuters video journalist was killed on October 13, and six other journalists from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera were wounded in a strike by an Israeli tank.

On January 2, 2024, Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri was killed in Beirut’s southern suburbs in a strike blamed on Israel.

On February 26, Israeli strikes Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in the first such raid on Lebanon’s east since fighting erupted in October.

July, August 2024: Hezbollah, Fatah chiefs killed

On July 27, a rocket strike killed 12 children aged 10-16 in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Israel blames the strike on Hezbollah, which denies the claim.

The Israeli army responds by striking Beirut’s southern suburbs on July 30, killing Hezbollah’s top commander in the south, Fuad Shukr.

In an August 21 strike, the Israeli military kills Khalil Maqdah, described by the Palestinian Fatah movement as “one of the leaders” of its armed wing in Lebanon.

August 2024: hostilities surge

On August 25, Hezbollah says it launched a barrage of hundreds of rockets and drones on Israel in response to the killing of Shukr. It says its operation “was completed and accomplished”.

But Israel says it has thwarted the attack, launching air strikes into Lebanon that the military says destroyed “thousands” of Hezbollah rocket launchers.

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

New Delhi:

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) on Sunday conducted a series of precision strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, thwarting what Israeli officials described as a large-scale attack. The strikes, which began at 5 am local time, were part of a military campaign aimed at neutralising Hezbollah’s growing threat along Israel’s northern border.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a video showcasing the operation, stating, “Our operation in Lebanon targeted the terrorist infrastructure Hezbollah planned to use against us, protecting Israeli families and homes.”

WATCH how the IAF acted precisely today to stop a large-scale terrorist attack from Hezbollah.

Our operation in Lebanon targeted the terrorist infrastructure Hezbollah planned to use against us, protecting Israeli families and homes. pic.twitter.com/2J3sqAnFWB

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 25, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing his cabinet later that day, warned that the military action was far from over. “We are striking Hezbollah with surprising, crushing blows,” Netanyahu said. “This is another step towards changing the situation in the north and safely returning our residents to their homes. And, I repeat, this is not the final word.”

Netanyahu highlighted the success of the operation, noting that the military had destroyed thousands of short-range rockets, all of which were intended to harm civilians and forces in the Galilee region of Israel. He also confirmed that the IDF had intercepted all the drones that Hezbollah launched at a strategic target in central Israel, which Israeli media reported to be the headquarters of its spy agency Mossad. 

Over 100 Israeli warplanes participated in the preemptive assault, targeting thousands of Hezbollah missile launchers across southern Lebanon. The strikes were based on what Israeli officials described as “precise intelligence” indicating that Hezbollah was on the verge of launching a massive missile barrage at northern Israel, as well as drone attacks on key intelligence centres.

In the immediate aftermath of the strikes, Israel declared a 48-hour state of emergency and temporarily shut down its main airport, leading to the cancellation of several flights. Despite Hezbollah’s retaliation, which involved firing over 300 projectiles into Israel, the damage was minimal. Israeli officials reported that one soldier was killed by falling debris, while three fatalities were reported in Lebanon.

Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the broader conflict in the region continued. Negotiations in Cairo, aimed at establishing a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza, proceeded as planned. However, the talks faced challenges, with Hamas accusing Israel of setting new conditions and prolonging the cease-fire negotiations.

 

Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israeli forces since October, last went to war with Israel in 2006 and has since expanded its domestic and regional influence, politically and militarily.

Financed and armed by Iran, Hezbollah is the most prominent actor in the so-called axis of resistance — regional pro-Tehran armed groups opposed to Israel that also include Palestinian group Hamas, Iraqi movements, and Yemen’s Huthi rebels.

Since the day after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has launched cross-border attacks from Lebanon seeking to tie up Israeli military resources in support of its Palestinian ally.

Fears of all-out war have spiked after Hezbollah vowed to avenge an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last month that killed a key commander, Fuad Shukr, and Iran pledged retaliation for the killing in Tehran, blamed on Israel, of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Hezbollah-Israel War

Hezbollah, whose name means “Party of God” in Arabic, was founded during the Lebanese civil war after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982, and has since become a key domestic political player.

Created at the initiative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Shiite Muslim movement gained its moniker as “the Resistance” by fighting Israeli troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in July-August 2006 that killed some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, mostly soldiers, after the group kidnapped two Israeli troops in a cross-border raid.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 ended that conflict and called for the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.

But Hezbollah has maintained a discreet presence there, where it enjoys broad support and where experts say it likely has a network of underground tunnels.

On August 16, the group released a video showing what appeared to be underground tunnels and large missile launchers, without revealing their location.

The group also has a strong presence in the Bekaa valley in east Lebanon near the border with Syria.

Hezbollah has bolstered its powerful arsenal, including with guided missiles, and says it can count on more than 100,000 fighters.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was elected secretary-general in 1992 after Israel assassinated his predecessor, and he rarely appears in public. 

Hezbollah’s Regional Influence

Hezbollah is a key actor in the Middle East, where it plays a central role in the “axis of resistance”. It has supported and trained Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Huthi rebels in Yemen, who since October have claimed attacks on Israel and Israeli-linked shipping interests.

Hezbollah is also present in Syria, where many of its members have fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, with Damascus also an ally of Tehran.

Domestically, Hezbollah is the only Lebanese faction to have retained its weapons after the country’s 1975-1990 civil conflict, doing so in the name of “resistance” against Israel.

It is now a key political player, though detractors have accused it of being a “state within a state”.

Political deadlock between Hezbollah allies and their adversaries since late 2022 has prevented the election of a new president, in a country experiencing a grinding economic crisis.

Hezbollah’s Services

Founded in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah has become predominant in all Shiite Muslim areas of Lebanon, while its key religious and financial institutions are based in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The movement runs an extensive social services network, complete with schools, hospitals, emergency responders and a wide range of charitable organisations serving its supporters.

Its trademark yellow flags and huge portraits of Nasrallah, along with pictures of dead commanders, fighters and “axis of resistance” figures, adorn areas of the country where it is popular.

The United States has considered Hezbollah a “terrorist” organisation for years, blaming it for a series of bombings and hijackings in the 1980s, including one targeting US Marines in Beirut. The European Union applies the classification to the group’s armed wing.

In 2022, a UN-backed court sentenced two Hezbollah members in absentia to life imprisonment for a huge Beirut bombing in 2005 that killed Lebanon’s former premier Rafic Hariri.

Israel:

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US “bridging proposal” for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian operative group’s October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, was scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle in 1942, to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace.

Afterwards, he will head to a meeting with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in Doha, the scene of ceasefire talks last week.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month Gaza conflict.

Washington put forward the latest proposal last week after the talks in Doha.

Blinken said Monday he had “a very constructive meeting” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal”.

Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on the mediators to implement the framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions” and leaves him “fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators”.

Earlier on Monday, the US secretary of state had said: “This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security”.

Months of on-off negotiations with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“There is, I think, a real sense of urgency here, across the region, on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible,” Blinken said.

The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.

Biden said in his farewell speech to the convention that the protesters “have a point”, adding that “a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides”.

Permanent ceasefire

Israel and Hamas have traded blame for delays in reaching a truce deal.

Hamas insisted on “a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations within the territory.

Western ally Jordan, hostage supporters who protested in Tel Aviv during Blinken’s visit, and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu in order for an agreement to be reached.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s governing coalition oppose any truce.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,139 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and operative deaths.

Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that negotiators were aiming to “release a maximum number of living hostages” in the first phase of any ceasefire.

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

Jerusalem:

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that Israel would fight Hezbollah “with all its might” if the Lebanese armed group continued its “aggression” across the border.

“We will not allow the Hezbollah militia to destabilise the border and the region. If Hezbollah continues its aggression, Israel will fight it, with all its might,” Gallant said in a message addressed to the people of Lebanon, according to a statement from his office.

Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

Fears of all-out war have mounted after Israel killed Hezbollah’s top military commander Fuad Shukr in an air strike in a Beirut suburb last week.

Reminding the people of Lebanon of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Gallant warned Lebanon to “learn the lesson of the past so as not to fall into a dangerous scenario in August 2024”.

The devastating 34-day war in July-August 2006 killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

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

President Joe Biden speaks with reporters after greeting reporter Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva and Paul Whelan at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., following their release as part of a 24-person prisoner swap between Russia and the United States, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday the killing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh was not helpful for reaching a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza.

There has been an increased risk of an escalation into a broader Middle East war after the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran drew threats of retaliation against Israel.

Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, who had participated in internationally-brokered indirect talks on reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.

Also read: What does Haniyeh’s death mean for Israel-Iran rivalry?

Anxious residents in Israeli-besieged Gaza feared that Haniyeh’s killing on Wednesday would prolong the war.

Iran said the killing took place hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for its new president.

“It doesn’t help,” Mr. Biden told reporters late on Thursday, when asked if Haniyeh’s assassination ruined the chances for a ceasefire agreement.

Mr. Biden also said he had a direct conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government has issued no claim of responsibility but he has said Israel had delivered crushing blows to Iran’s proxies of late, including Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and would respond forcefully to any attack.

Israel’s tensions with Iran and Hezbollah have fanned fears of a widened conflict in a region already on edge amid Israel’s assault on Gaza which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The Gaza health ministry says that since then Israel’s military assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide accusations that Israel denies.

The United States has said it was not involved in the killing of Haniyeh. 

Hezbollah’s leader warned on August 1 that the conflict with Israel has entered a “new phase,” as he addressed mourners at the funeral of a commander from the group who was killed by an Israeli airstrike this week in Beirut.

Meanwhile in Tehran, Iran’s supreme leader prayed over the body of Hamas’ political leader, who was killed in a presumed Israeli assassination.

The back-to-back killings have increased fears of an escalation into a wider war, leaving the region waiting to see how Iran and ally Hezbollah will respond. Iran has vowed retaliation against Israel for the strike that killed Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 in the Iranian capital of Tehran.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s assassination, but comments by Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stopped short of an outright denial.

“There was no additional airstrike, not a missile and not an Israeli drone, in the entire Middle East that night,” he said on August 1, fueling speculation that Israel could have used other means to kill Haniyeh.

Israel did confirm it carried out the strike on July 30 in Beirut that killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur, along with an Iranian military adviser and at least five civilians. Israel said Shukur was behind a rocket attack days earlier that hit a soccer field in the Israeli-held Golan Heights, killing 12 children. Hezbollah denied being behind that strike, a denial that Nasrallah reiterated.

In a speech via video link to mourners gathered with Shukur’s coffin at an auditorium in a Beirut suburb, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said, “We … have entered a new phase that is different from the previous period.”

“Do they expect that Hajj Ismail Haniyeh will be killed in Iran and Iran will remain silent?” he said of the Israelis. Addressing Israelis who celebrated the two killings, he said, “Laugh a bit and you will cry a lot.”

But as he often does, Nasrallah kept his comments vague, vowing a “very well-studied retaliation” without saying what form it would take. He said only that Israel “will have to wait for the anger of the region’s honorable people.”

“The enemy and the one who is behind the enemy” — an apparent reference to Israel’s chief ally, the United States — “will have to wait for our coming response,” he said.

International officials have been scrambling to avert a cycle of retaliation before it spirals into a greater war. Since the Gaza war began in October, Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily across the border in exchanges that have caused deaths and the evacuation of tens of thousands from their homes. But they have also stayed within limits.

Several times, strikes that appeared to cross red lines raised fears of an acceleration into full-fledged war, but outside diplomacy reined in the two sides. Hezbollah faces strong pressure not to draw Lebanon into a repeat of the militant group’s 2006 war with Israel, which wreaked heavy death and destruction in the country.

Israel and Iran risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April. Iran retaliated, and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each other’s soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control.

In Beirut’s southern suburbs, the biggest Shiite district in the capital, hundreds of black-clad mourners packed the auditorium, many of them holding Hezbollah flags or photos of Shukur. An escort of red-capped fighters carried Shukur’s coffin, also draped in a Hezbollah flag, down the aisle to the backing of a military band.

In his speech, Nasrallah praised Shukur as a veteran commander and denied that Hezbollah carried out the deadly strike on the soccer field in the mainly Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan.

“We have the courage to take responsibility for where we strike, even if it’s a mistake. If we made a mistake, we would admit and apologize,” he said, adding, “The enemy made itself the judge, jury, and executioner without any evidence.”

An unusual relative calm prevailed on August 1 on the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah claimed no rocket launches into Israel during the day. The Lebanese state news agency said a strike hit the house of a Syrian family in a southern Lebanese town, killing at least four people and wounding several others. Afterwards, Hezbollah announced it had launched a barrage of rockets into Israel in retaliation.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah’s fighters would return to regular military operations Friday, ending the period of mourning for Shukur, but that the renewed strikes would be unrelated to the retaliation for his killing.

Earlier on August 1 in Tehran, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prayed over Haniyeh’s coffin in a ceremony at Tehran University, with the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, next to him. State television later showed the coffin placed in a truck and moved on the street toward Azadi Square in Tehran and people throwing flowers at it.

Haniyeh’s remains are to be transferred to Qatar for burial on August 2.

Haniyeh came to Tehran to attend the inauguration of Pezeshkian. Associated Press photos showed the Hamas leader seated alongside leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group and Hezbollah, and Iranian media showed him and Pezeshkian hugging. Haniyeh had met earlier with Khamenei.

Hours later, he was killed in a strike that hit a residence Haniyeh uses in Tehran. Iranian authorities said the attack is under investigation but haven’t provided details.

Israel had pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. On Thursday, Israel said it had confirmed that the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, was killed in a July 13 airstrike in Gaza. Hamas, which earlier said Deif survived the blast, did not immediately comment.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “all parties” in the Middle East must avoid escalatory actions that could plunge the region into further conflict.

Speaking on August 1 in the Mongolian capital of Ulaaanbataar, Mr. Blinken appealed for countries to “make the right choices in the days ahead” and said a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was the only way to begin to break the current cycle of violence and suffering. Blinken did not mention Israel, Iran or Hamas by name in his comments.

Jerusalem:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel was prepared for any “aggression” against it following threats of retaliation for the killings of top Hamas and Hezbollah figures.

“Israel is at a very high level of preparation for any scenario, both defensive and offensive. We will make any act of aggression against us pay a very high price,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

“Those who attack us, we will attack in return.”

His comments came as Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday that the Lebanese armed group was bound to respond to Israel’s killing of its top military commander, Fuad Shukr, in a strike on Tuesday in a Beirut suburb.

Later on Thursday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz issued a threat in a statement posted on X.

“Hassan Nasrallah, stop the boasting speeches, threats and lies before you pay a heavy price,” Katz said.

“We will act with full force to restore security to the residents of the north.”

On Wednesday, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a strike in Tehran, which Iran and Hamas have blamed on Israel. Israel has declined to comment on his killing.

“You do not know what red lines you crossed,” Nasrallah said addressing Israel during a speech broadcast at Shukr’s funeral.

“The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response.”

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