The leader of the Lebanese armed movement "Hezbollah" Hassan Nasrallah vowed to respond to Israel's killing of senior military commander and head of the group's strategic division, Fuad Shukr, saying the longtime enemy had "crossed red lines", Reuters reported, citing BTA.
Shoukr, along with an Iranian military adviser and five civilians, were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
It was also the most serious blow against the Iran-backed Shiite movement in nearly two decades and threatens to turn the exchange of blows along the Lebanese-Israeli border and the war in the Gaza Strip into a full-scale regional conflict.
In a televised address at the funeral of the slain commander, Nasrallah said the conflict had entered a "new phase, different from the previous" and that Israel crossed red lines with its attack on the group's stronghold in Beirut.
Nasrallah said unnamed countries had asked his group to strike back at an "acceptable" way - or not at all. However, he specified that for "Hezbollah" will be "impossible" not to answer.