The head of Hezbollah swore there would be a “response and punishment” by the Lebanese militant group to a Tuesday airstrike in Beirut that killed a Hamas deputy chief. In a televised speech on Wednesday, Hassan Nasrallah blamed “flagrant Israeli aggression” for Saleh al-Arouri’s death in the densely populated Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, according to Al Jazeera. The strike, which Nasrallah called “a major, dangerous crime about which we cannot be silent,” also killed six other members of Hamas, The Washington Postreported. The action marks the first strike to directly hit Beirut in almost three months of border skirmishes between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel had not publicly claimed responsibility for the strike as of Wednesday, but Nasrallah promised in his speech that Hezbollah would fight with “no rules” if Israel formally launched a war on Lebanon.
