New Delhi:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday confirmed that he personally authorised the operation to eliminate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. The 64-year-old Nasrallah was killed as Israeli strikes targeted dozens of Hezbollah sites in eastern and southern Lebanon following intense rocket fire by the group into northern Israel. Israeli jets bombarded Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut overnight, flattening several residential buildings.

Netanyahu termed Nasrallah’s death as a critical achievement in Israel’s military strategy and as a step toward restoring security along Israel’s northern borders.

Addressing his country following Nasrallah’s killing, Netanyahu said that Nasrallah had been responsible for orchestrating numerous attacks on Israelis and foreign nationals, including high-profile bombings in the 1980s. 

These attacks included the 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed 63 people at the US embassy and hundreds of US Marines and French paratroopers. Netanyahu said that “terrorist” Nasrallah’s death was vital for degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities, stating, “As long as Nasrallah was alive, he would quickly restore the capabilities we had eroded from Hezbollah.”

“We settled the score with the one responsible for the murder of countless Israelis and many citizens of other countries, including hundreds of Americans and dozens of French,” he said 

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The Israeli Prime Minister pointed to the elimination of Nasrallah as a turning point that would accelerate the return of northern Israeli residents who had fled due to cross-border fire and further weaken Hamas, Hezbollah’s ally in Gaza. “The more [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar sees that Hezbollah is no longer coming to save him, the greater the chances for the return of our hostages,” Netanyahu said, referring to the ongoing efforts to secure the release of Israelis captured by Hamas during its October 7 attack.

Netanyahu praised Israel’s military and intelligence agencies, including the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet, for executing the operation. “We are winning,” he said.

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Netanyahu used Nasrallah’s death as an opportunity to warn Iran. He said that Israel’s reach extends across the region, including Iran, and made clear that the killing of Nasrallah should serve as a message to Tehran and its proxies. “There is nowhere in Iran or the Middle East beyond the reach of the long arm of Israel, and today you know how true that is,” he said. “I say to the Ayatollah’s regime: whoever beat us, we will beat them.”

Concluding his message, Netanyahu called this period a “historic turning point” and reaffirmed his commitment to the safe return of displaced residents and the recovery of hostages. He ended with a pledge of unity: “We will fight together, and with God’s help, we will win together.”

“We are determined to continue to strike at our enemies, return our residents to their homes, and return all our abductees. We do not forget them for a moment,” he said. 

People watch the speech of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on a TV screen as they sit in a cafe in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on September 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Israeli military announced on Saturday (September 28, 2024) that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a strike on Beirut.

“Hassan Nasrallah is dead,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced on X. Military spokesman Captain David Avraham also confirmed to AFP that the Hezbollah chief had been “eliminated” following strikes on Friday (September 27, 2024) on the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Also read: Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon LIVE updates

While a source close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said on Saturday (September 28, 2024) that contact had been lost since last evening with chief Hassan Nasrallah, after Israel said it had “eliminated” him in a strike on the group’s southern Beirut bastion.

“Contact with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been lost since Friday evening,” said the source, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. He did not confirm whether Nasrallah had been killed.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah recently his speech condemned the Israeli pager attacks that killed not just Hezbollah members but also unarmed Lebanese citizens. “There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a major security and military blow that is unprecedented in the history of the resistance and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said.