TEHRAN - Israeli media has described the speech of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during the funeral of a prominent Hezbollah commander as “very aggressive”.

“The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response … You do not know what red lines you crossed” Nasrallah declared on Thursday. 

Hebrew media pointed out that the most significant aspect of the speech was “his talk about Hezbollah entering a new phase of fighting,” after Tel Aviv crossed red lines by targeting the southern suburbs of Beirut.

It was reported that Sayyed Nasrallah “keeps Israel in a state of tension with his dramatic threat that it should definitely expect a forthcoming response”. 

Israeli media noted that Nasrallah, through his comments about the Israeli attack on Beirut and his insistence that it is aggression and not a response to the Majdal Shams incident, and his reference to the killing of civilians, including children, “gives legitimacy to the potential response”.

Hezbollah categorically denied any involvement in the Majdal Shams incident when a projectile landed on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, killing a dozen civilians from the Arabic-speaking Muslim Druze community. 

Tel Aviv used the tragic incident to attack Beirut, assassinating senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shokor. 

Lebanon’s Civil Defense reported seven people were martyred and 78 wounded in the Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital’s southern suburb that assassinated Shokor. 

Among those killed included two children and several women.

Israeli Channel 13 military analyst, Alon Ben-David, commenting on Nasrallah’s speech noted, “We heard Nasrallah threatening a severe response, and we take his words seriously, as we see Hezbollah preparing for war”. 

He continued that Hezbollah “does not want war,” but it “knows that its severe response might lead to war, so it is preparing for this scenario, just as Israel is preparing in terms of air defense”. 

Ben-David added that “the estimate is that Israel will receive a significant response from Hezbollah, and the Israeli army is preparing its response, with an Israeli decision that any significant attack within Israeli territory, whether military or civilian, will be met with an

Israeli response, meaning the likelihood of war expansion is high.”

Meanwhile, an Arab affairs commentator on Channel 13, Zvi Yehezkeli, stated that “it must be understood that the threats of Nasrallah in the speech reflect a strong desire for revenge for the assassinations in the Beirut suburb and Tehran.”

According to Yehezkeli, “Hezbollah is expected to respond exceptionally and more than usual in the north,” referring to “launching precision drones and missiles deeper into Israel.”

He indicated that “Iran is planning, as it did previously, to launch missiles and drones. If this happens, it might involve Yemenis, as well as Iraq and Syria, who feel they can do more than before. This is a significant challenge for Israel.”

A military affairs analyst on the Hebrew Kan news outlet, Roy Sharon, also stated that “the security and military establishment is at the height of readiness across all fronts.”

Sharon added, “We have heard Nasrallah, and we have heard threats from (leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution) Khamenei, clearly indicating that there will be a response.”

This comes amid the panic experienced by the Israeli occupation entity, which is anticipating a response from Iran to the aggression that targeted Haniyeh during his stay in Tehran, as well as a response from Lebanon to the assassination of Hezbollah’s Fouad Shokor in an aggression targeting the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israeli sources for Makan Channel predicted that Iran might launch ballistic missiles and explosive drones at Israeli army bases.

The channel’s sources expected that the Iranian response could come in a few days, possibly by the end of the current week.

The leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, had confirmed that Tehran would respond to the assassination of Haniyeh, underlining that avenging the blood of the Haniyeh “is Iran’s duty because he was martyred on our soil”. 

In Lebanon, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah confirmed that the resistance would respond to the occupation’s assassination of Shokor and its aggression on the southern suburbs of Beirut, noting that “there is no discussion or debate about this,” and that “the response will be real and very calculated, not a symbolic response”. 

Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized in his speech, which concluded the funeral ceremony for Shokor, that “we are in an open battle on all fronts, and it has entered a new phase”. 

Shokor, a senior military commander and Sayyed Nasrallah’s close confidant, was assassinated by the Israeli military in the southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday evening.

The Israeli occupation has been on high alert ever since it assassinated Shokor and Hamas’s Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

Israeli media has also reported that industrial activity in northern occupied Palestine will be reduced for all factories 40 kilometers from the border with southern Lebanon instead of four kilometers, as had been the case for many months, amid the daily exchange of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army. 

In a similar vein, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that due to rising tensions in the north and following directives from the Israeli Home Front Command, operations at a factory in Acre city have been suspended due to the presence of ammonia tanks. 

Additionally, other factories handling hazardous materials have been instructed to empty and evacuate their gas tanks.

On Friday, reports surfaced in southern Lebanon that a rocket volley was launched from Lebanon toward the occupied western al-Jalil (Galilee). 

Following the Israeli aggression on Beirut, Hezbollah did not carry out any operations. 

Sayyed Nasrallah announced in his speech that the Lebanese support front for Gaza would return actively to what it was by Friday morning, explaining that operations were paused until the conclusion of funeral processions of the Hezbollah commander and Lebanese civilians. 

However, he emphasized that these operations have “nothing to do with the response to the [assassination] of Shokor”.