TEHRAN- Israel’s savage attacks on residential areas in the Lebanese capital and the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah have once again exposed the true colors of the apartheid regime and its main supporter, the United States.

Israel launched brutal strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut late on Friday. 

Huge explosions rocked the neighborhood of Dahiyeh, which had already been hit by air raids in recent days. Israel had launched a massive bombing campaign in Lebanon on Monday killing hundreds of people, including dozens of children. 

According to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, the Israeli deadly strikes on Friday leveled at least seven buildings in Dahiyeh’s Haret Hreik. 

The Israeli air force dropped more than 80 bombs on Dahiyeh’s residential buildings.

The Hezbollah movement announced on Saturday that the movement’s chief lost his life in the Israeli raids. 

In a statement, Hezbollah vowed that it will “continue its fight to confront the enemy” after confirming Nasrallah’s assassination.  

The Lebanese resistance movement described Nasrallah as a “sacred martyr”, saying he was killed in a “treacherous Zionist airstrike on the southern suburbs” of Beirut. 

“The leadership of Hezbollah pledges to the most supreme, sacred, and dearest martyr in our journey, filled with sacrifices and martyrs, that it will continue its fight to confront the enemy, in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defense of Lebanon and its steadfast and honorable people,” the statement said.

It added, “His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Hezbollah, has joined his great and eternal martyred companions, whom he led for nearly thirty years, guiding them from victory to victory.”

Israel assassinated Nasrallah after Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu delivered a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Netanyahu’s office circulated a photograph of the prime minister using a landline telephone to approve the strikes, the New York Times reported. 

Friday’s attack has once again exposed Washington’s complicity in Israel’s warmongering. 

A military analyst told Al Jazeera that the ordnance used by Israel in its attack on Beirut was a “very new type of bomb” – the GBU-72.

Elijah Magnier added that the weapon was “an advanced 5,000-pound [2,200kg] bunker buster that was created in 2021”. 

He said Israel used these US-supplied bombs to “confirm the kill and wanted to make sure nobody is going to be alive”.

US media have already acknowledged that Israel had used American-made bombs during its deadly strikes on residential areas in the Gaza Strip. 

Hezbollah retaliation 

In response to Israel’s attacks, Hezbollah intensified its retaliatory operations.

The resistance movement’s reprisal strikes have spread a growing sense of panic among Israelis keeping the regime on its toes. 

Such developments have raised fears of a full-scale war between the regime and Hezbollah. 

But it remains to be seen whether Israel would be able to survive in case of such a conflict amid its previous setbacks at the hands of the resistance movement’s fighters. 

Hezbollah ends Israeli occupation

Hezbollah dealt a major blow to Israel after ending the regime’s nearly 20-year occupation of Lebanon. 

Israel launched an offensive in Lebanon in 1982, sending its tanks all the way to Beirut. It occupied southern Lebanon until it was driven out by Hezbollah in 2000. 

Israel carried out the assault after coming under attack from Palestinians in Lebanon. 

Sporadic clashes between Israel and Hezbollah continued even after it was forced to leave southern Lebanon.

Israel’s humiliation in 2006 war  

Tensions boiled over in 2006 when Israel went to war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The war started on July 12, 2006 – days after the Lebanese resistance movement captured two Israeli soldiers. 

The conflict ended in mid-August after Israel failed to defeat Hezbollah.

Israel killed more than 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians in the 34-day conflict.  More than 120 Israeli soldiers were also killed. 

The martyr Hezbollah leader said on multiple occasions that the 2006 war, known as the July War, was a success for the resistance movement. 

In August 2021, an Israeli inquiry acknowledged the regime’s failure to achieve its goal in the 2006 war, describing the conflict as “unsuccessful” and “missed opportunity”.

“Israel initiated a long war, which ended without its clear military victory,” the inquiry found . 

Hezbollah stronger than ever 

The military capability of the Lebanese resistance movement has grown since then. 

Hezbollah’s martyred chief had already said that the resistance movement has 100,000 fighters.

Hezbollah has also increased its stockpile of missiles from 14,000 in 2006 to about 150,000 and has developed precision-guided missiles and its drone programs. 

Presently, Israel has sealed its fate by killing Nasrallah and hundreds of Lebanese people. 

Anti-Israel sentiment had already been on the rise over Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza which has claimed the lives of more than 41,500 Palestinians since October 7.

Israel's foolish act in Lebanon and the assassination of Nasrallah has given rise to deep resentment against the regime and its Western and regional allies. 

The administration of President Joe Biden has thrown its full military weight behind Israel and certain Arab states have refused to cut ties with the regime amid its war of genocide in Gaza. 

Israel has not only massacred Palestinian and Lebanese people, but it has also targeted regional resistance groups such as Yemen’s Ansarullah.  

The regime has also killed Iranian military advisors in Syria, assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists, and carried out acts of sabotage in the country.  

Israel’s military adventurism amounts to playing with fire amid growing resistance against its malicious acts in West Asia.  

Israel has started the war against the Axis of Resistance, but the regime should know that it would not be able to determine its fate.

Besides, Israel’s military adventurism comes amid the regime’s growing international isolation over its appalling atrocities in Gaza. 

Rising anger toward Israel will undoubtedly lead to another Al-Aqsa Storm, the surprise military operation carried out by Hamas on October 7 that humiliated Israel and revealed its vulnerability. 
But a new version of Al-Aqsa Storm will result in the annihilation of the Zionist regime and disgrace its enablers for good.