Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah's executive council, warned that the party would “strengthen its operations” against Israel. “They will intensify in power, number and quality in response. Our enemy will know who the sons of the resistance in Lebanon are,” he said during the funeral, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, of Taleb Abdallah, the head of the party's Nasr Unit, who was killed along with three other members in an Israeli strike Tuesday evening in Jwaya.

Abdallah's death is the most significant killing for the party since it opened the southern Lebanese front against Israel in October to support Hamas in its war in Gaza.

Hundreds of Hezbollah supporters and activists gathered in the afternoon in the Ashoura complex to attend the funeral of the slain commander. Fighters in fatigues, wearing black berets, carried the coffin, covered with the Hezbollah flag, to the sound of military fanfare.

“We say goodbye today to a brother who died in jihad,” added Safieddine in a tribute to the commander. “He was always predestined for martyrdom … It is therefore natural that he was targeted,” he said. The three other Hezbollah “martyrs” are Mohammad Sabra, born in 1973 and originally from Haddatha, Hussein Hamayid, born in 1980 and originally from Bint Jbeil, and Ali Soufan, born in 1971 and originally from Jwaya. It was the latter's home that was targeted by the Israeli strike.

The Israeli army confirmed that it had carried out “an airstrike” to kill Abdallah and the three others. It claimed that Abdallah was "one of Hezbollah's most important commanders in southern Lebanon" and that he had "planned and executed attacks" against Israel for years.

No decision

Hezbollah's response to this strike did not take long. On Wednesday, it claimed 19 attacks against Israel, the highest number since the start of the war.

It notably claimed to have targeted Israeli artillery positions and soldiers gathered in Khirbet Maar, opposite the Lebanese border village of Boustan, in addition to firing at the site of Hanita, opposite Alma al-Shaab and another on Jal al-Alam, opposite Labbouneh.

Hezbollah also said it targeted the Birket Richa site using Burkan missiles, also in response to the Israeli attack on Jwaya. According to the party, Israeli soldiers gathered in Malkia, which faces the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab, were also targeted. It also launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” and artillery shells against the headquarters of the “northern corps,” located in the Ain Zeitim base, then against the headquarters of the reserves of the same unit, located in Amiad, and finally against the headquarters of its air control unit, located at the Meron base.

Since the start of the war, Hezbollah's strikes against Meron have been synonymous with an episode of high tension. An Israeli army spokesperson said that around 160 projectiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israeli territory in two successive barrages, causing alarm sirens to go off in many Israeli localities, but without causing any casualties However, several fires were caused by these shots, added the spokesperson.

The Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, affirmed that the Israeli air force targeted “two missile platforms” of Hezbollah in Taybeh and Rashaya al-Foukhar which were used to launch shells toward northern Israel in the morning. He added that the Israeli air force targeted a “missile platform” as well as “four infrastructures” of Hezbollah in the Yater region “from where rockets were fired earlier in the day.”

Israeli army sources told Haaretz that Benjamin Netanyahu's government has not yet made a decision on a broad military offensive against Hezbollah, but will continue to carry out targeted assassinations and strikes against the installations of the party. Still, according to the Israeli daily, the Israeli army does not expect Hezbollah's reprisals to reach the city of Haifa, in northern Israel, because the assassination of Taleb Abdallah took place in the region of Sour, in southern Lebanon, and not in Beirut or another strategic location.

This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.