Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Friday (February 16) that he would make Israel pay “with blood” the price for civilians killed in Lebanon this week, assuring that his party’s precision missiles could reach the southern tip of the enemy country.
“Our women and our children who were killed (…), the enemy will pay the price for their blood,” declared the leader of the Lebanese Islamist movement in a televised speech. He warned that his formation “has an enormous precision missile capability” that can cover Israeli territory “from Kiryat Shmona (North) to Eilat (South).”
During the night from Thursday to Friday, five fighters from Hezbollah and the allied Amal movement were killed during Israeli raids in southern Lebanon, the two groups announced.
Deadly violence
The strikes come following deadly violence in the border region, where exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have intensified, raising fears of an escalation. According to the official National News Agency (ANI), Israeli aircraft carried out strikes overnight on five villages in the south of the country.
The Shiite Amal movement, led by the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, deplored the death of three of its members, killed by a strike on a house in the village of Al-Qantara. Hezbollah, for its part, announced the death of two of its fighters. This brings to twelve the number of members of the powerful movement killed since Wednesday.
The Islamist group announced Thursday evening that it had fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel, in response to Israeli raids which left fifteen people dead the day before.
Exchanges of fire at the border
Ten civilians and five members of Hezbollah, including a military official, were killed. On the Israeli side, a soldier died in a rocket attack from Lebanon, which was not claimed. Wednesday was the bloodiest day since the exchange of fire on the border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army began more than four months ago.
Hezbollah opened the southern Lebanese front to support its ally, Palestinian Hamas, at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip since the Islamist movement’s unprecedented attack in southern Israel on October 7. In more than four months, at least 268 people, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other allied groups, but also 40 civilians, have been killed in southern Lebanon, according to a count by Agence France- Press (AFP). On the Israeli side, ten soldiers and six civilians were killed, according to the army.
