BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s deputy chief, Naim Kassem, said on Sunday the group was in a “new phase” of its battle against Israel.
“We have entered a new phase, namely an open reckoning” he said, adding that only a ceasefire in Gaza would put a stop to cross-border attacks, warning “the Israeli military solution increases the dilemma for Israel and the residents of the north” of the country.
Kassem personally attended the funeral of military leaders Ibrahim Aqil and Mahmoud Hamad on Sunday in southern Beirut.
They were killed in the Israeli raid last Friday during a leadership meeting of the party’s elite Radwan Brigade.
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Tension and violence spiked dramatically this week, with heavy Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon and Hezbollah firing rockets at Haifa in northern Israel, raising fears of all-out war.
Kassem’s latest remarks are seen as Hezbollah’s response to Israeli pressure to force the party to stop hostilities in southern Lebanon that have raged for almost a year, in order to allow civilians to return to their homes.
“The residents of the north will not return, but rather displacement will increase, support will expand, and the Israeli solution will increase their predicament,” Kassem said. “Go to Gaza and stop the war, and we do not need threats and we will not determine how to respond to the aggression. We have entered a new phase entitled the ‘open account’ battle.”
His statement came after a violent night of Hezbollah military operations against Israel, after an Israeli military graph indicating that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is at the top of its assassination list was published over the weekend.
Kassem said that Israel “committed three painful war crimes for us, and they represent the highest levels of savagery that we have never seen.”
He added: “By targeting the leaders of Radwan, (Israel) wanted to paralyze the resistance, incite its environment, and stop the support front, but the resistance fighters disrupted that.
Kassem said: “Threats will not stop us, and we do not fear the most dangerous possibilities, and we are ready to confront all military possibilities.”
Thousands of Hezbollah members and supporters took part in the funeral of Aqeel and Hamad as Civil Defense personnel continued working for the third consecutive day to remove the victims of the raid on Al-Jamous neighborhood.
The number of dead has risen to 50 including women and children and 18 Hezbollah members. Thirteen people are still missing.
A member of the Civil Defense told Arab News: “The Hezbollah officials who were gathered at the time of the raid all died as a result of the intense pressure and were still in their chairs on the second floor underground.
“Their bodies were not disfigured as happened with the civilians living in the building, some of whom died of suffocation.
“We recovered the bodies of children who were burned, and their limbs were shattered when we tried to lift them. There are many remains whose owners are unknown.”
A Civil Defense statement on Sunday said: “One of the most main difficulties faced by the personnel was the fire that broke out under the rubble in a car park on the first lower floor.
“The personnel made tremendous efforts in trying to reach the source of the fire due to the presence of several layers of concrete, which caused smoke to spread and hindered the search and rescue operations.”
On Sunday Lebanon’s Health Ministry said three people were killed in separate Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon.
The ministry said an Israeli raid on the town of Aitaroun “led to the death of one person and the wounding of another, and that a raid on the town of Khiyam led to the death of one person. A raid on the town of Al-Malikiyah led to the death of one person and the wounding of three people.”
More than 60 airstrikes were recorded “in an initial response” to the explosions of pagers and two-way radios in various Lebanese regions last Tuesday and Wednesday. Hezbollah said it “bombed the Rafael military industry complexes” in northern Israel with “dozens” of rockets, and targeted Ramat David airbase with Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets.
The Israeli military said that “within hours, Hezbollah launched about 115 air threats toward civilian areas in northern Israel.”
Israeli media reported that two houses in the town of Kiryat Bialik near Haifa were hit, and three Israelis were injured.
The Israeli military responded with more shelling of southern Lebanese towns during the early hours of Sunday morning, and Israeli warplanes raided border towns in the south and western Bekaa, targeting the Deir Al-Zahrani area and Iqlim Al-Tuffah.
Hezbollah announced on Sunday afternoon that it had “launched two airstrikes with squadrons of suicide drones on newly established positions of Israeli soldiers around Al-Manara site and the Yiftah barracks.”
