Israel claims assassination of Hezbollah leader Wissam Tawil

Israel's new Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz has claimed responsibility for the assassination of Wissam Tawil, a leader of the Radwan unit in the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

Katz, in an interview with Israel's 14th Channel, said that it is part of the war, and that Tel Aviv's goal is to return the safety of northern and southern Israel.

"We are making Hizbullah pay a price and working to keep it away from the border more and more practically, and this could end with intense international pressure, by the way, on Iran, to pressure Hizbullah, because it realizes the price, as this could develop tomorrow into a full-scale war," he said.

He said that Israel is fighting a war on several fronts, and it has prepared itself and has the means for that, adding that the American support for Israel is strategic in the face of a third world war happening around it, which is being fought by the Iranian axis.

Katz threatened Hezbollah, if the war evolved, that it would be hit 50 times harder than in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Hezbollah announced on Monday that prominent field leader Wissam Tawil was killed in an Israeli raid targeting a car in southern Lebanon.

According to the Israeli army, the base was damaged, which the Hezbollah described as part of an initial response to the assassination of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), in an air strike in the southern suburb of Beirut.

On November 22nd, Israel assassinated five leaders of the Radwan unit of Hezbollah forces.

"In solidarity with the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah and Palestinian factions in Lebanon have been engaged in sporadic daily shelling by the Israeli army since October 8, killing and injuring dozens on both sides of the border."

Source: Al-Jazeera + agencies