Assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan al-Laqqis.

Iranian daily Kayhan called upon Lebanon’s Hezbollah to avenge the assassination of a senior official last week by carrying out a combined terror and kidnapping operation and murdering IDF soldiers, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

In an editorial, translated by MEMRI, Kayhan, which operates directly under the supervision of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, exhorted the Shiite political and terror organization that controls Southern Lebanon, to “carry out a surprise operation, in which it will kill a few soldiers from the Zionist regime’s armed forces and will take others captive.”

Last week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Al-Laqqis was murdered outside his Beirut home by armed men at short range with pistols, equipped with silencers. While a group called “The Free Sunnis of Baalbek Battalion” claimed responsibility for the attack, via a post on Twitter, Hezbollah blamed Israel. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied the accusation.

Kayhan said the loss of the Hezbollah leader was a blow to the organization because of the difficulty to replace him. But, Kayhan wrote, the upside is that retaliation against Israel by Hezbollah would now be “more ethical and acceptable.” The paper then went on to describe what it said where the best ways to inflict an “act of vengeance” on Israel.