Hezbollah chief vows to respond to Israeli attacks ‘whatever the consequences’

BEIRUT — Lebanon's Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, renewed his threats against Israel on Tuesday, vowing a “strong, impactful and effective response” to the killing of one of the group's senior commanders in an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut, last week.

Nasrallah also warned that the factories in northern Israel, which he says are worth billions of dollars, could be destroyed in an hour or even half an hour.

The Hezbollah chief made his comments in a televised speech, the second in less than a week, as tensions boil in the country and the region ahead of an anticipated military response by Iran and its proxies in the region for the killing of Hezbollah’s second in command, Fuad Shukr, last Tuesday, and the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran the following day in a strike Iran blamed on Israel.

On Shukr's killing, Nasrallah “acknowledged the magnitude of the loss” but stressed that “this does not affect us at all, and the proof is the continuation of the operations.”