Hassan Nasrallah: International community reacts as Israel kills top Hezbollah leader
Reactions are trickling in from members of the international community after Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on a suburb of Beirut.
Several global powers have also cautioned about the potential consequences of the killing, as the threat of full-scale war looms over the Middle East.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his deep concern, stating he was “gravely concerned by the dramatic escalation of events in Beirut over the past 24 hours.”
On its part, Russia’s foreign ministry said “we decisively condemn the latest political murder carried out by Israel” and urged it to “immediately cease military action” in Lebanon.
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The statement added that Israel would “bear full responsibility” for the “tragic” consequences the killing could bring to the region.
The Iran-backed Yemeni rebels, who have been launching attacks on ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas, declared that Nasrallah’s death “will increase the flame of sacrifice, the heat of enthusiasm, the strength of resolve” in their fight against Israel. Their leader vowed that Nasrallah’s killing “will not be in vain.”
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who maintains diplomatic ties with Israel but has been a vocal critic of its offensive in Gaza, stated on X that Lebanon was facing “genocide,” though he did not directly mention Nasrallah.
In a post on X, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called 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.”
Nasrallah’s assassination marks the climax of a series of Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah’s leadership.
For over three decades, he led Hezbollah, transforming it into a significant military and political force in the enduring Middle Eastern conflict.
His death in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut is expected to usher in a new chapter in the ongoing war.
