BEIRUT
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday said his group would no longer abide by traditional rules of engagement with Israel, asserting that the self-proclaimed Jewish state would bear full responsibility for killing Hezbollah fighters.
"Hezbollah doesn't want a war with Israel, nor does it fear one," Nasrallah said in a televised speech to commemorate Hezbollah fighters killed earlier this month by an Israeli raid in the Syrian city of Quneitra.
"We have decided to respond to the killing of our fighters, even if this leads to full-fledged escalation," he added.
Nasrallah went on to say that Hezbollah "no longer recognizes any rules of engagement with Israel," adding that that his group considered Syria and Lebanon – and any other region in which its fighters were targeted – as a single battlefield.
"It is our legal and legitimate right to fend off any assault, whenever and wherever it takes place," he said.
Earlier this month, six Hezbollah fighters and six Iranians were killed by an airstrike – which Hezbollah and Iran say was carried out by Israel – in the Syrian city of Quneitra.
The slain fighters included two Hezbollah commanders and the son of Imad Mughniyah, a Hezbollah military commander killed by a car bomb in Syria in 2008.
For over two years, Hezbollah has been openly engaged in the conflict in Syria, where it continues to fight alongside Syrian regime forces.
In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war in which more than 1,200 Lebanese – mostly civilians – were killed. Some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed in the same conflict.
