Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, said reports that the latest Israeli air strikes on Lebanon’s capital were an attempt to kill Hezbollah’s Hashem Safieddine – a cousin of the group’s late leader Hassan Nasrallah – can be understood as part of Israel’s long history of assassination.
“This has been going on for about 40 or 50 years. The Israelis and even the pre-state Zionists before that were routinely trying to decapitate the movements of resistance,” Khouri told Al Jazeera.
Such violence has “only given birth to a whole ring of resistance groups around Israel” Khouri said, and made it “a pariah state in the world”.
Israel has been “criminalised in front of the courts of the UN and is being increasingly seen negatively by public opinion. This is happening all over the world and it has made Israel the most dangerous place in the world for a Jewish person,” he added.
Israel is now seen as a “runaway killing machine. A massacring machine. A baby-shredding machine all over the Middle East. Killing medics. Killing university professors. Destroying hospitals. It’s completely run amok with its military might,” he continued. AJ report