Hezbollah Leader Vows to Avenge Top Commander Killed by Israel

Hezbollah fighters stand behind the coffin of their top commander Fouad Shukr, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, July 30, as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks through a screen during Shukur's funeral in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters stand behind the coffin of their top commander Fouad Shukr, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, July 30, as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks through a screen during Shukur's funeral in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
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Hezbollah Leader Vows to Avenge Top Commander Killed by Israel

Hezbollah fighters stand behind the coffin of their top commander Fouad Shukr, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, July 30, as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks through a screen during Shukur's funeral in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
Hezbollah fighters stand behind the coffin of their top commander Fouad Shukr, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, July 30, as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks through a screen during Shukur's funeral in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)

Lebanese Hezbollah's head Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday to respond to Israel's killing of the group's top military commander, saying its decades-old foe had "crossed red lines."

An Israeli strike on Hezbollah's stronghold in the southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday killed top commander Fuad Shukr, along with an Iranian military advisor and five civilians.

It was the most serious blow to the Iran-backed group in nearly two decades and threatened to push the tit-for-tat exchanges across Lebanon's southern border in parallel with the Gaza War into a full-blown regional conflict.

Speaking in a televised address to mark the funeral of the slain commander, Nasrallah said the conflict had entered "a new phase unlike the previous one" and that Israel had crossed red lines with its attack on the group's stronghold.

Nasrallah said unnamed countries had asked his group to retaliate in an "acceptable" way - or not at all. But he said it would be "impossible" for the group not to respond.

"There is no discussion on this point. The only things lying between us and you are the days, the nights and the battlefield," Nasrallah added in a threat to Israel.

He said the group had ratcheted down its operations over the last two days out of respect for the victims of the strike but would "go back to work normally starting tomorrow morning," although the retaliation for Shukr's killing would come later.

"The response will come, whether spread out or simultaneously," he said.

Just hours after Shukr's killing, the leader of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh was killed in the Iranian capital Tehran in an attack widely blamed on Israel.

Nasrallah said that anyone seeking to prevent the region from slipping into a tailspin should work on a Gaza ceasefire.

"There will be no solution here except to stop the aggression on Gaza," he said.



UN Seeks $6 Billion to Ease Hunger Catastrophe in Sudan

Displaced Sudanese, who fled the Zamzam camp, gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on February 14, 2025. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese, who fled the Zamzam camp, gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on February 14, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Seeks $6 Billion to Ease Hunger Catastrophe in Sudan

Displaced Sudanese, who fled the Zamzam camp, gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on February 14, 2025. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese, who fled the Zamzam camp, gather near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

UN officials on Monday asked for $6 billion for Sudan this year from donors to help ease what they called the world's worst ever hunger catastrophe and the mass displacement of people brought on by civil war.

The UN appeal represents a rise of more than 40% from last year's for Sudan at a time when aid budgets around the world are under strain, partly due to a pause in funding announced by US President Donald Trump last month that has affected life-saving programs across the globe.

The UN says the funds are necessary because the impact of the 22-month war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - that has already displaced a fifth of its population and stoked severe hunger among around half its population - looks set to worsen.

World Food Program chief Cindy McCain, speaking via video to a room full of diplomats in Geneva, said: "Sudan is now the epicenter of the world's largest and most severe hunger crisis ever."

She did not provide figures, but Sudan's total population currently stands at about 48 million people. Among previous world famines, the Bengal Famine of 1943 claimed between 2 million and 3 million lives, according to several estimates, while millions are believed to have died in the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-61.

Famine conditions have been reported in at least five locations in Sudan, including displacement camps in Darfur, a UN statement said, and this was set to worsen with continued fighting and the collapse of basic services.

"This is a humanitarian crisis that is truly unprecedented in its scale and its gravity and it demands a response unprecedented in scale and intent," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said.

One of the famine-stricken camps was attacked by the RSF last week as the group tries to tighten its grip on its Darfur stronghold.

While some aid agencies say they have received waivers from Washington to provide aid in Sudan, uncertainty remains on the extent of coverage for providing famine relief.

The UN plan aims to reach nearly 21 million people within the country, making it the most ambitious humanitarian response so far for 2025, and requires $4.2 billion - the rest being for those displaced by the conflict.