Officials say country ready for every scenario as questions swirl about how Iran and its proxies will react to the assassinations of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders
By LAZAR BERMAN, FOLLOW
EMANUEL FABIAN FOLLOW
and AGENCIES1 August 2024, 12:05 am
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks from IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, July 31, 2024. (PMO video Screenshot)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Wednesday evening that “challenging days are ahead” for Israel as it braces for attacks from Iran and its regional proxies following the assassinations of Hezbollah’s top military commander in Beirut and Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Speaking from military headquarters in Tel Aviv at the end of a three-hour-long security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israel was facing threats from across the region following the killing of Faud Shukr, whom he called “Hezbollah’s chief of staff,” in Beirut on Tuesday night.
“We are ready for every scenario,” he promised, “and will stand united and determined against every threat.” He added: “Israel will exact a very heavy price for any aggression against us.”
Israel was on high alert Tuesday evening as it prepared to face retaliation for the attacks. The killings and expectations of a response have fueled further concern that the conflict in Gaza was turning into a wider Middle East war.
The United States urged its citizens to not travel to Lebanon, citing rising tensions. The State Department raised its travel advisory to Lebanon to level four, which says “Do Not Travel.” The State Department advised Americans in Lebanon to depart if possible.
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While it confirmed hitting Shukr, Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s killing, and Netanyahu avoided doing so during his Wednesday comments. But Iran and Hamas blamed the Jewish state for the attack.
As Netanyahu was addressing the nation, Hezbollah formally confirmed that Shukr had been killed, more than 24 hours after the IDF struck the eight-story apartment building in southern Beirut that he was in. Shukr will be buried on Thursday, the Iran-backed group said, and its leader Hassan Nasrallah will deliver an address.
The UN Security Council said it would be holding an emergency meeting on Wednesday, at 4 p.m. New York Time (11 p.m., in Israel) on the killing of Haniyeh. The meeting was requested by Iran and supported by representatives of Russia, China and Algeria.
Meanwhile, Israeli President Isaac Herzog urged the public to be “responsible and vigilant” amid the threats from Iran and its proxies, and to follow instructions issued by the security establishment.
“We did not desire war and we will not desire war, but we must be prepared,” the president said.
The Israeli strike in Beirut was carried out in retaliation for a deadly Hezbollah rocket attack on a Golan Heights Druze town Saturday that killed 12 children in a soccer field. Israel has said Shukr was responsible for the attack, and others across northern Israel.
Iran’s official Fars News Agency reported Wednesday night that Iranian military adviser Milad Bedi had also been killed in the Beirut strike that killed Shukr. Bedi was in the building where Israel targeted Shukr and his body was identified on Wednesday, the report said.
A general view shows a destroyed building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, July 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Pointing to the Beirut assassination, the strike in Gaza on the leader of Hamas’s military wing Muhammad Deif several weeks ago and on the Houthi-controlled Hodeida port in Yemen, Netanyahu said Israel had landed “crushing blows” on Iran and its main proxies.
The Druze and the Jews have a “covenant of life” that has been strengthened in recent days, the premier said of Israel’s retaliation for the deadly Hezbollah strike on Majdal Shams. “We settled our score with [Hajj] Mohsin,” he said, referring to Shukr’s nom de guerre, “and we will settle our score with anyone who harms us.
“The murder of innocent children has been added to the unending suffering of the residents in the north, our dear ones who have been exiled from their homes, and whose communities have suffered serious attacks — and for this we will not be silent.”
“Everyone who takes aim at our children, everyone who murders our citizens, everyone who harms our country — their blood is on their own head,” Netanyahu added.
Like Netanyahu, Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar stressed at a graduation ceremony for drone operators at the Palmachim Airbase on Wednesday evening that the IAF was ready for “any scenario.”
The Air Force was “enveloping Israel with dozens of aircraft, manned and remotely manned, prepared and ready in a matter of minutes for any scenario, in any area,” Bar said. “We will act against anyone who plans to harm the citizens of the State of Israel, there is no location that is too far for us to attack.”
Questions swirled in Israel throughout all of Wednesday about how Iran and its proxies would react to the assassinations of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
Israel’s aviation authority said on Wednesday morning that the airspace from the coastal city of Hadera northward would be closed for a period of 24 hours, with the exception of emergency fights by the military, police, firefighters and medical evacuations.
Ben Gurion Airport was unaffected by the closure, as commercial flights generally do not fly north of Hadera to reach the airport located near Tel Aviv.
Still, two leading US airlines announced Wednesday they were freezing flights to the country for several days.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Israel Katz sent a letter to dozens of foreign ministers around the world, calling on them to demand “an immediate cessation of Hezbollah’s attacks, its withdrawal to the north of the Litani River and its disarmament in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701.”
That resolution ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and stipulated that Hezbollah must not be active south of the Litani, a demand Hezbollah has flaunted over the years as it built its robust military infrastructure along Israel’s border.
“Israel is not interested in an all-out war,” Katz said, “but the only way to prevent it is the immediate implementation of Resolution 1701.”
The strike on Shukr “sent a clear message,” Katz added, “We will use great force to harm whoever harms us.”
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In his Wednesday address, Netanyahu asserted that he has been under pressure, domestically and abroad, to end the war in Gaza.
“I did not give in to those voices then, and I don’t give in to them now,” he said.
Had he listened to them, the premier argued, Israel would not have taken out Hamas leaders and fighters, destroyed infrastructure, taken the Gaza-Egypt border area, or “created the conditions that bring us closer to terms that will not only bring our hostages back, but also allow us to achieve all of our objectives for the war.
“All of the achievements in recent months were attained because we did not give in,” Netanyahu said, “and because we made brave decisions in the face of great pressure at home and abroad. And I tell you it was not easy.
“Together we will fight, and with God’s help, together we will win,” he concluded.
Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report.
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