Netanyahu says Nasrallah killing 'settled score' as Iran declares public mourning

Israeli Prime Minister says country on cusp of 'historic turning point', while Iran's supreme leader warns attacks on Israel will escalate

Protesters took to the streets of Tehran on Saturday following the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Getty Images

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that his country “settled the score” with the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, as fresh Israeli attacks on Lebanon were carried out overnight.

“We settled the score with the one responsible for the murder of countless Israelis and many citizens of other countries, including hundreds of Americans and dozens of French,” the Israeli leader said in his first statement since Nasrallah's killing. “Nasrallah was not a terrorist, he was the terrorist.”

His comments alluded to 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed 63 people at the US embassy along with 241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers at their barracks.

As long as Nasrallah was alive, he “would quickly restore the capabilities we had eroded from Hezbollah”, Mr Netanyahu added, saying his death “changes the balance of power in the region for years to come”.

“So, I gave the order – and Nasrallah is no longer with us.”

Many Israelis have celebrated Nasrallah’s killing in a Beirut air strike on Friday that levelled six residential buildings and killed and wounded dozens of other people. Protests against his death have been held across the region, including in Iraq, Yemen and Iran.

Mr Netanyahu also said his country was on the cusp of “what appears to be a historic turning point” in the fight against its “enemies”.

Meanwhile, in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel “did not achieve victory” by killing the Hezbollah chief. In comments carried by state media, Mr Khamenei said Nasrallah was killed “while he was engaged in planning to defend the homeless people of Beirut suburbs and their destroyed houses and their loved ones, just as he had been planning and planning and fighting for decades to defend the oppressed people of Palestine”.

He declared five days of public mourning across Iran over Nasrallah's death. Hezbollah has lost “an unparalleled leader”, Mr Khamenei added, but said his demise will not be in vain, saying Iran-backed groups “will gain strength” from his killing and intensify attacks on Israel.

“The blows of the resistance front against the weary and decaying body of the Zionist regime will, with the help of God, be more crushing,” he said.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon continued overnight, with strikes reported across Baalbek-Hermel governorate and in the south. Six bodies were recovered from under the rubble of a house in the Bekaa Valley, state media reported on Sunday, with five others also believed to have been killed in the strike.

Thirty-three people were killed in strikes across the country on Saturday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. More than 1,000 people have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded in Israeli attacks over the last two weeks.

The violence is expected to intensify amid reports that Israeli troops may have already crossed the border. Tanks have been pictured on the Israeli side of the boundary, while anonymous US officials told broadcaster ABC that cross-border operations have either already begun or are imminent.

Israel does not yet appear to have fully decided whether to launch a ground operation but is prepared for one, the officials said. If a ground operation happens, its scope will likely be limited, they added.