Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who gave a televised address on Monday evening, declaring the right to retaliate for the assassination of Samir Kuntar as he sees fit. Photo: Wikipedia.

In a televised speech on Monday evening, the leader of Hezbollah announced that his organization is reserving the right to respond to the assassination of official Samir Kuntar at the time and place of its choosing.

In his address, broadcast live on Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese satellite channel Al Manar TV, Hassan Nasrallah said, “Henceforth, we will hold the Israelis responsible for any fighter or youth from among Hezbollah’s ranks who is killed in cold blood, and we will consider it our right to respond…in the manner we see fit.”

Nasrallah also said Hezbollah had no doubt that Israel was responsible for Saturday night’s assassination of Kuntar, in a precision-missile airstrike on a residential building near Damascus.

Nasrallah then lashed out against attempts by the “wretched press” to attribute the killing of Kuntar to members of the Syrian opposition. Even if such reports were true, he argued, Kuntar’s death ultimately served Israeli interests and therefore remains the responsible party.

“The Israelis have always been threatening the martyr Kuntar, who used to live at the heart of this threat at all times. The Zionist enemy neither forgives nor shows tolerance,” Nasrallah asserted, stressing that the “banner of struggle” against Israel is eternal, and that Kuntar’s assassination assured it would be passed on to the next generation. He saluted the “youth of Palestine” for continuing the struggle “with knifing operations and vehicular attacks,” noting that many of the perpetrators were close to the age of Kuntar when he carried out his terrorist attack against an Israeli family in Nahariya in 1979.

Nasrallah further emphasized that, regardless of the measures Israel takes to defend itself, and no matter whom it assassinates, Hezbollah’s struggle against it — as part of the overall struggle to liberate Palestine — would not abate.