The pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement vowed on Sunday to continue to fight Israel and support its main ally Hamas in Gaza despite the severe blow Israel dealt it this week, saying the conflict had entered a new phase.
“We follow the front of support and confrontation… we will kill them and fight from where they expect and from where they do not expect,” said Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naeem Kassem, referring to Israelis. He spoke at the funeral of Ibrahim Akil, a key commander in the movement.
“We will now determine how to respond to the aggression, and we have entered a new phase with the Israeli army called the ‘Battle of the Open Account,'” Kassem said.
He vowed that the residents of northern Israel will not return, but instead the displacement will increase as the movement will increase its attacks into northern Israel from Lebanon.
“We are prepared to face all military possibilities and you will see the results,” said Kassem referring to a possible war with Israel.
Killed commander Akil was top Hezbollah strategist
Akil, was killed along with 44 other people, when Israeli warplanes struck a building where he and other commmanders from the movement’s elite Radwan Force were holding a meeting under a residential building in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a hotbed of the movement.
Kassem said during the funeral that Akil was the commander of operations in Hezbollah and that he started Radwan in 2008.
Sixteen members of the force were killed in Friday’s Israeli airstrike, according to Hezbollah sources.
Hezbollah: Israel guilty of ‘three war crimes’
The Hezbollah official said Israel has committed “three war crimes” by hitting residential areas and houses and not only their fighters.
Tensions have also intensified in recent days, when Hezbollah pagers and two-way radios exploded on Tuesday and Wednesday killing over 70 people, and wounding 68 others. Hezbollah has blamed Israel, which has not commented.
Men clad in black and others in military fatigues were crying as the coffins of Akil and another commander passed during the funeral process.
“God is Great…God bless Nasrallah,” chanted the angry crowd while raising their fists in the air, in a show of support for Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader.
Israel has been exchanging fire with Hezbollah on a daily basis since the beginning of its conflict with the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in Gaza nearly a year ago.
