Israel to face crushing response, Iran tells Hezbollah's Nasrallah
Chief of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hossein Salami addresses in front of the portrait of Seyed Razi Mousavi, a high-ranking general of the guard, who was killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria on Monday, during his funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023. (AP File Photo)


Iran's Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami told Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah that Israel would receive a "crushing" retaliation from the "axis of resistance," as Israel continues its provocations with the latest back-to-back attacks involving the detonation of communications devices in Lebanon.

The axis of resistance refers to Iran-aligned armed groups in the Middle East, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, and Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces.

Lebanon and Hezbollah have blamed Israel for the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 37 people and wounded around 3,000, although Israel has not directly commented on the attacks, which security sources say were probably carried out by its Mossad spy agency.

"Such terrorist acts are undoubtedly the result of the Zionist regime's (Israel) despair and successive failures. This will soon be met with a crushing response from the axis of resistance and we will witness the destruction of this bloodthirsty and criminal regime," Salami said in his message to Nasrallah.

Iran and Israel often threaten each other with the destruction of their respective regimes, following decades of tensions that culminated in Iran directly launching drones and missiles on Israel last April, following a deadly Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria. Israel also killed

Nasrallah spoke on Thursday, saying the deadly attacks that blew up Hezbollah radios and pagers "crossed all red lines" and "could be called a declaration of war."