Russia, Turkey, Hamas and others blast Israel’s killing of terror chief Nasrallah
Yemen’s Houthis declare assassination strengthens their determination to confront ‘the enemy’; Erdogan calls on UN to stop Israel, Syria calls Beirut strike ‘despicable aggression’
Opponents of Israel and allies of Hezbollah and Iran on Saturday condemned the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, after the Lebanon-based terrorist group confirmed his death in an Israeli strike on south Beirut a day earlier.
Among those expressing outrage at Israel’s actions were Hamas, Turkey, Russia, Syria, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraq.
Hamas in a statement said: “We condemn in the strongest terms this barbaric Zionist aggression and targeting of residential buildings… and we consider it a cowardly terrorist act.” It offered “condolences, and solidarity with the brothers in Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon on the martyrdom of… Nasrallah.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, from Hamas’s rival faction, Fatah, offered his “deep condolences” to Lebanon for the deaths of Nasrallah and civilians, who “fell as a result of the brutal Israeli aggression,” according to a statement from his office.
Yemen’s Houthis said the killing of Nasrallah would strengthen their determination to confront “the Israeli enemy.”
“The martyrdom of… Hassan Nasrallah will increase the flame of sacrifice, the heat of enthusiasm, the strength of resolve,” said a statement from the leadership council of the Iran-backed group, vowing to achieve “victory and the demise of the Israeli enemy.”
Alongside Hezbollah, the Houthis have targeted Israel consistently over the last year in what the organizations said were displays of solidarity with Hamas amid its ongoing war with Israel in Gaza.
While Hezbollah has launched near-daily rocket and drone attacks at Israel since October 8, the Houthis have targeted what it says are Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea and fired missiles at Israel, the majority of which were aimed at Eilat but some were targeted at Tel Aviv, including one fired on Friday and another on Saturday.
Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, said a prominent Islamic Regime Revolutionary Guard official was killed alongside Nasrallah.
The country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei condemned on Saturday what he called a “massacre” in Lebanon and called on Muslims “to stand by the people of Lebanon and the proud Hezbollah with whatever means they have and assist them in confronting the… wicked regime [of Israel].”
“Lebanon will make the aggressor and the evil enemy regretful,” he vowed.
Russia also criticized Israel for killing Nasrallah, with a statement from the country’s foreign ministry saying it “decisively condemn[s] the latest political murder carried out by Israel” and “once again insistently urge[s] Israel to immediately cease military action.”
Syria on Saturday called the airstrike that killed Nasrallah, one of Damascus’s key supporters in years of civil war, a “despicable aggression.”
“The Syrian people… have never for a day forgotten (Nasrallah’s) positions of support,” a Syrian foreign ministry statement cited by the state news agency SANA added, while announcing three days of official mourning.
Hezbollah since 2013 has openly backed the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s civil war, which broke out after the repression of anti-government protests.
Along with Russia, Hezbollah-backer Iran has helped Assad regain territory lost earlier in the civil war.
While Damascus condemned Nasrallah’s killing, in areas outside government control, some were celebrating, including in the Idlib jihadist-run rebel bastion.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel was committing “genocide” in Lebanon, repeating an accusation he has lobbed at the country regularly since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7.
“Lebanon and the Lebanese people are the latest target of a policy of genocide, occupation and invasion carried out by Israel since October 7,” Erdogan wrote on X, without directly referring to Nasrallah’s death.
“No person with a conscience can accept, excuse or justify such a massacre,” he added, calling for organizations such as the United Nations Security Council to put a stop to Israel’s “mindless” attempts to extend conflict across the region.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also condemned Nasrallah’s killing as a “crime.”
The Friday attack on Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold that killed the Iran-backed group’s leader was a “shameful attack” and “a crime that shows the Zionist entity has crossed all the red lines,” Sudani said in a statement, calling Nasrallah “a martyr on the path of the righteous.”
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel also responded to the assassination, calling the killing a “cowardly targeted assassination” that “seriously threatens regional and global peace and security, for which Israel bears full responsibility with the complicity of the United States” in a post on X.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also expressed solidarity with Nasrallah and Lebanon, saying, “They want to justify it, but to assassinate him, they attacked buildings, housing estates and killed hundreds of people. There’s a word for this: crime.”
Since Israel escalated its airstrikes on the Hezbollah terror group on Monday, more than 630 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 2,000 wounded, according to the country’s health ministry.
At least a quarter of those killed have been women and children, according to Lebanese health officials. Israel has said that many Hezbollah operatives are among the dead.
