Mossad And Hezbollah Threaten Each Other, US Rushes To Calm The Situation

ILLUSTRATION OF ETSPLASH/Israel/Levi Meirncy

JAKARTA - The boss of the secret service of Israel, Mossad, and the leader of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon issued threats to each other after a series of killings of Hamas leaders and Iranian military officials.

This situation prompted US President Joe Biden to order a special envoy to immediately go to the Middle East to calm things down.

Israel's head of foreign intelligence service (Mossad), David Barnea, said he would hunt down and kill all Hamas leaders involved in the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

"It will take time, just like the Munich massacre (in 1972), but will hunt them wherever they are," Barnea was quoted as saying by ANTARA from The Guardain, Thursday, January 4.

"Every Arab mother must know that if her son participates, either directly or indirectly, in the October 7 massacre, then they must be prepared to bear the consequences," said Barnea at the funeral of former Mossad Director Zvi Zamir.

Zamir is an Israeli intelligence figure who led the bloody revenge against Palestinian militants who killed a number of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich, Germany, in 1972, when the Olympics were held there.

Israel has not officially acknowledged that it killed deputy political bureau Hamas Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed in a drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon.

But in recent months, a number of Israeli officials including PM Benjamin Netanyahu and head of the Ronen Bar's internal secret service (Shin Bet) have vowed to launch a revenge as happened after the 1972 massacre of Munich.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also warned Israel's troops were ready to fight completely if Israel dared to open fronts in Lebanon.

Nasrullah is furious that Israel killed Salah al-Arouri in southern Beirut which is Hezbollah's base.

"If the enemy wants to declare war in Lebanon, then we will fight all out, without rules, without limits, and without obstacles," Nasrallah said in a speech he had prepared to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of General Qassem Soleimani who led Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Kors.

"We are not afraid of war. For now, we are fighting on the front lines with careful calculations," Nasrallah said as reported by the Times of Israel.

Arouri was killed in Dahiyeh, Beiru, Tuesday, January 2, evening. Nasrallah said Arouri's assassination showed Israel for the first time targeting Beirut's southern suburbs since 2006 when the second Lebanese-Israeli War broke out that led to Beirut's southern suburbs being bombed.

Facing this situation, US President Joe Biden ordered special envoy Amos Hochstein to immediately go to the Middle East to lower tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.