Touting Nasrallah killing, Netanyahu warns Iran: You know Israel can reach anywhere
After Houthis claim they fired at airport as he landed, PM says assassination will shift regional balance of power; IDF hits Hezbollah sites as Gallant meets on expanding offensive
Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah in a Friday sortie will reshape the Middle East’s power structures, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday, warning Iran that Israel’s military can strike wherever in the region it needs — “and today you know how true that is.”
Netanyahu’s first public comments since a massive Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah’s leader in his southern Beirut headquarters on Friday came as fighter jets continued to pound Hezbollah targets, and as the IDF announced a blockade aimed at stymying Iranian weapons shipments into Lebanon. The military also indicated a possible broadening of strikes after nearly a week of intensified fighting.
Despite suffering heavy losses from days of intense airstrikes on its weapons stores and leadership, Hezbollah continued to flex its extensive rocket arsenal throughout Saturday, firing at least 100 rockets into Israel, including what appeared to be the group’s first attack targeting Jerusalem.
The stunning assassination of the longtime foe at the head of what was considered Iran’s most powerful proxy culminated a series of Israeli strikes that have taken out much of the group’s leadership, and ushered in deep uncertainty over whether the killing could serve as a prelude to a wider war.
Speaking from Jerusalem after returning from a trip to the UN General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu said Israel’s targeting of Nasrallah was necessary to achieve Israel’s war aims, allowing residents of northern Israel displaced by nearly a year of Hezbollah rocket fire to return home.
“Nasrallah wasn’t just another terrorist. He was the terrorist,” he said. “Eliminating Nasrallah was an essential condition for achieving the goals that we have set out — returning the residents of the north safely to their homes and changing the balance of power in the region for years.”
“As long as Nasrallah was alive, he would have quickly rehabilitated Hezbollah’s capabilities,” Netanyahu added.
With Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei moving to a secure location, the Israeli premier also appeared to issue a direct challenge to Tehran, which had supplied Hezbollah with funds, weapons and know-how, building it into a formidable branch of the Islamic Republic on Israel’s northern border.
“Those who strike at us, we will strike at them,” Netanyahu said. “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.”
Nasrallah, long seen as a top assassination target of Israel, had spent over a decade avoiding public appearances to remain out of harm’s way, but on Friday evening, Israeli warplanes carried out a large strike on the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh south of Beirut, killing Nasrallah, along with several other top commanders, in the group’s subterranean headquarters.
On Sunday, the IDF released images and a video showing F-15i fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force’s 69th Squadron taking off from Hatzerim Airbase to carry out the assassination of Nasrallah.
Dozens of bunker-busting bombs were dropped by the fighter jets on Hezbollah’s underground headquarters in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut in the attack, according to the military.
According to an analyst cited by the New York Times, the eight F-15I jets were equipped with at least 15 2,000-pound munitions with an American-made precision guidance system that attaches to bombs.
Netanyahu said he decided to order the strike after coming to the conclusion that Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah until that point were not sufficient. According to reports, Israel had been tracking Nasrallah’s whereabouts for months, but Netanyahu only approved the operation on Friday, amid fears that Israel could lose the opportunity it had to take him out.
According to the army, more than 3,500 munitions have been dropped by Israeli Air Force fighter jets on Hezbollah sites in the past week, taking out many of their rocket, missile, and drone capabilities, along with intelligence sites.
Israel said it carried out over 140 strikes in Lebanon late Friday and Saturday, including facilities where rockets were being manufactured or assembled in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley, a Hezbollah bastion on the Syrian border. It also announced that a strike on Beirut a day earlier had destroyed dozens of anti-ship missiles, siloed at six warehouses and primed to be used within minutes.
Hezbollah is known to possess the Chinese C-704 and C802 missiles, as well as the Iranian Ghader, which have ranges of up to around 200 kilometers.
The army noted Saturday that it had carried out strikes on eight land crossings from Syria into Lebanon on Thursday as it sought to step up a long-running campaign to stymie weapons shipments, particularly advanced precision rockets, from Iran to Hezbollah via Iraq and Syria.
Reports early Sunday indicated that an airstrike had taken place near the Syrian town of Albukamal on the Iraqi border, an area thought to be on a major smuggling route used by Iran-backed groups. There was no claim of responsibility.
The IDF was also preventing arms from being smuggled into the country from Iran via the international airport in Beirut, the army said. In a possible sign of the blockade being enforced, an Iranian Qeshm Fars Air flight from Tehran, apparently heading for Lebanon or Syria, made a U-turn over Iraqi airspace Saturday.
Strikes overnight Friday and throughout the day Saturday also killed a number of senior Hezbollah members, including an attack in Dahiyeh Saturday afternoon that the army said killed Hassan Khalil Yassin. According to the IDF, Yassin headed a unit in Hezbollah’s intelligence division tasked with locating military and civilian sites in Israel to be targeted.
Some Lebanese media also reported Saturday evening that the IDF had targeted Nabil Qaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s executive council.
Ahmed Muhammad Fahd, the head of a Hamas network in southern Syria, was killed in an airstrike overnight, the IDF said.
A recent airstrike also killed Muhammed Ismail, the commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit in southern Lebanon, along with his deputy Hussein Ismail, and other commanders, the IDF said Saturday morning. It did not detail when or where the strike took place.
The IDF says it is continuing to strike Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
In the past few hours, rocket launchers aimed at Israel, buildings where Hezbollah stored weapons, and other infrastructure were hit in airstrikes, according to the military. pic.twitter.com/0LGUNjxd4X
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 28, 2024
Late Saturday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other generals to plan for the expansion of the offensive, his office said.
The IDF said Saturday it was mobilizing three more battalions of reserve soldiers to serve across the country, after sending two brigades to northern Israel to prepare for a possible ground invasion last week.
A report in ABC News citing a senior US defense official claimed Saturday that Israel was planning a limited ground incursion into Lebanon.
Halevi said Saturday that the killing of Nasrallah was “not the end of our toolbox” indicating that more strikes were planned. Gallant called it “the most important targeted strike since the founding of the State of Israel.”
The Lebanese health Ministry said Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed 33 people and wounded 195 others on Saturday. It did not say how many were non-combatants.
Israel had called Saturday morning for civilians in Dahiyeh, the Beqaa Valley or southern Lebanon who were near Hezbollah sites to evacuate.
Hezbollah responded to the Israeli strikes by lobbing dozens of rockets into Israel, including at least one apparently targeting Jerusalem Saturday night that landed in the West Bank north of the capital, sparking a fire and cutting power to several nearby settlements. The attack, which came just after Netanyahu delivered his address, appeared to be the first time the group had targeted Jerusalem with a long-range rocket.
In a possibly related development, Jordan said a rocket struck an uninhabited area southeast of Amman, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the Lebanese border with Israel.
Long range missiles also targeted the Tel Aviv area, though most of the fire was aimed at Israel’s northern regions.
The IDf said in the late afternoon that some 90 rockets had been fired at Israel from Lebanon. There were no major injuries or damage reported in the attacks.
A surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen also triggered sirens in central Israel and the Jerusalem area. The missile was intercepted, though a large piece of shrapnel landed near the Jerusalem suburb of Tzur Hadassah. Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed they had attempted to hit Ben Gurion Airport as Netanyahu arrived back in Israel, following a rare flight over the Jewish Shabbat.
The prime minister’s plane, known as Wing of Zion, had landed in Israel some 35 minutes before the sirens sounded.
With Netanyahu and others warning of tough days ahead, the IDF’s Homefront Command released updated guidelines, canceling gatherings of more than 1,000 people.
Israel began launching intensified attacks on Hezbollah on September 23, aiming to stop near-constant rocket fire on Israel’s north. Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023 in support of Hamas following the Gaza-based terror group’s onslaught of southern Israel a day earlier, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 kidnapped into Gaza.
US President Joe Biden offered support for Israel’s decision to strike Nasrallah, saying Saturday it represented a “measure of justice” for victims of the Hezbollah terror group.
But he also reiterated that he wants to see ceasefires between Israel and Hezbollah and in Gaza.
In a brief exchange with reporters as he left church on Saturday, Biden did not directly respond to questions about the conflict potentially escalating further.
“It’s time for a ceasefire,” he said.
In Jerusalem, Netanyahu said taking out Nasrallah would help bolster the chances for a deal by pushing Hamas further into a corner.
“The more that [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar sees that Hezbollah is no longer coming to save him, the greater the chances for the return of our hostages,” he said.
