‘Dangerous escalation’: Members of Iran-backed axis bash Israel over Beirut strike
Foreign minister says Lebanon did not expect capital to be hit in attack killing Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, urges any response to ‘be proportionate and not more’
Allies of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group condemned an Israeli strike on Beirut Tuesday evening that killed a senior commander of the group who Israel said was responsible for a rocket attack on Majdal Shams on Saturday which killed 12 children.
Angry denunciations rolled in from Tehran, Hamas, the Houthis and Lebanese leaders following the airstrike targeting Fuad Shukr, also known as Hajj Mohsin, a senior adviser to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Others in the international community expressed concern that the attack could escalate tensions on the already restive border between Israel and Lebanon.
The IDF said Shukr was Hezbollah’s top military commander and the head of its strategic division, responsible for near-daily attacks on northern Israel over the past 10 months and other deadly attacks over the years. Israel said he was behind a rocket attack that hit a soccer field and playground in the Druze Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams Saturday, killing 12 kids and teens.
Shukr was named by the IDF several years ago as a commander of Hezbollah’s precision missile project. He was also wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 bombing of a US Marines barracks in Beirut, with a $5 million bounty placed on his head by Washington.
Iran foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani called the strike a “vicious” attack but said it would not deter “Lebanon’s proud resistance from continuing the honorable path of supporting the oppressed Palestinians and standing against the aggression of the Israeli apartheid regime.”
The Hamas terror group, which launched the October 7 onslaught against Israel which sparked the current war, also condemned the strike on Beirut, saying in a statement that it was a “dangerous escalation.” Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel on October 8 and says it is doing so in support of Hamas.
The Yemenite Houthi rebel group, which has been attacking ships in the Red Sea as well as sending attack drones to Israel over the past nine months, also in support of Hamas, said the Beirut strike was a “blatant violation” of Lebanese sovereignty.
“We denounce in the strongest terms the Zionist aggression against the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in a terrorist attack that premeditatedly and deliberately targeted civilians and civilian facilities in violation of all international conventions, and in flagrant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and international humanitarian law,” the movement said in a statement carried out Yemeni TV.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati “condemned the blatant Israeli aggression on the southern suburbs of Beirut,” his office said in a statement, describing it as a “criminal act” in a “series of aggressive operations killing civilians in clear and explicit violation of international law.”
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said that his government condemned the Israeli strike and planned to file a complaint to the United Nations over it.
“We were not expecting them to hit Beirut and they hit Beirut,” he told Reuters, saying he hoped Hezbollah’s response would not trigger an escalation.
“Hopefully any response will be proportionate and will not be more than that, so that this wave of killing, hitting and shelling will stop,” he said.
Syria also issued a condemnation, backing Hezbollah’s assertion that Israel had been behind the deadly Majdal Shams attack. After initially claiming to have launched rockets toward the Majdal Shams area Saturday, Hezbollah denied involvement once reports of civilian casualties emerged.
“The Israeli attack is a clear violation of international law, which comes two days after its heinous crime in the town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan,” the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by state media.
On X, Iraq’s foreign ministry called the attack “a blatant violation of international law and conventions that poses a serious threat to the stability of the region.”
The Russian foreign ministry called the Israeli strike on Beirut “a flagrant violation of international law,” according to the Russian state-run TASS news agency.
At the UN, Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said she was “deeply concerned by tonight’s strike,” and was in close contact with those involved to push for calm.
In a statement released by her office, Hennis-Plasschaert called “on both Israel and Lebanon to avail of all diplomatic avenues to pursue a return to the cessation of hostilities and to recommit to the implementation of resolution 1701 (2006).”
Resolution 1701 ended the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, the last major engagement between them. It called for Hezbollah to move away from the border with Israel in southern Lebanon and remain north of the Litani River.
Israel has warned it could launch a war to push Hezbollah away from the border if no diplomatic solution is reached to end months of near-daily attacks on northern Israel, which have rendered a swath of the country uninhabitable.
