BEIRUT, August 1. /TASS/. Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement will strike back at Israel for the July 30 air raid on the southern outskirts of Beirut, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said.
"This will be a real strike, not a formal one, we are preparing for this thoroughly," he said in a televised address to those taking part in the funeral ceremony for Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shukr, who was killed in the Israeli attack. "The enemy is in fear, they don't know where we will launch it [the strike], the field commanders will decide that," he said.
The politician said that Israel "crossed the red line" with the assassination of Shukr and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. "Now we are entering a new phase where there will be no auxiliary fronts in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria to support the Palestinians," he warned. "There will be a general battle, the whole region will turn into the battlefield," Nasrallah said.
"Yes, let Israel rejoice for a while that it succeeded in killing Shukr and Haniyeh, but very soon they will cry bitterly," he added. As the Shiite politician emphasized, "calm will return to the Middle East only when Israel agrees to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip."
On July 30, Israeli Air Force jets fired four missiles at Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold. The attack killed four, including two children of four and six, and left 74 wounded. A four-storey building was destroyed, while several other buildings and cars suffered damage.
The attack targeted Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander. According to the Al Hadath TV channel, he died of wounds in hospital.