BEIRUT/BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Lebanon’s Hezbollah announced on Monday that it had launched missile and drone strikes against a military site south of Haifa, formally entering the war between Iran and the U.S.-Israeli alliance in retaliation for the assassination of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
The group said in a statement that its fighters targeted the Mishmar HaCarmel missile site belonging to the Israeli army in southern Haifa with rocket and drone strikes, describing the operation as revenge for the blood of Imam Khamenei, whom it hailed as the “Leader of the Muslims.”
Hezbollah stated that the attack was also carried out in defense of Lebanon and its people and in response to repeated Israeli aggressions. The group’s leadership emphasized that ongoing Israeli raids and the assassination of leaders, youth and people grants it the right to respond at the appropriate time and place.
“The Israeli regime cannot continue its extensive aggressions from fifteen months ago without receiving a warning response to stop these aggressions and withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories,” the statement said. 
“This response is a legitimate defensive reaction, and officials and those involved must put an end to the Israeli-American aggressions against Lebanon.”
The announcement came after Lebanon’s health ministry reported that 31 people were killed by Israeli strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence, and in the country’s south. 
On Sunday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader denounced Khamenei’s assassination as “the height of crime” and declared that the group would undertake its duty of confronting the aggression by Israel and the United States.
At around 1 a.m. local time on Monday, sirens sounded in several areas of northern Israeli occupied lands and explosions were heard, according to reports.
In Iraq, the secretary-general of the al-Nujaba Movement issued a strongly worded statement holding U.S. President Donald Trump responsible for the assassination of Imam Khamenei and warning that the action would spark a long-term ideological war.
Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi addressed Trump directly in his statement, describing him as a “war merchant” and “enemy of peace and humanity” responsible for shedding the blood of a great religious authority and members of his family.
“You and the thugs who are with you will never survive your action and will be punished sooner or later,” al-Kaabi said in the statement carried by Iraqi media. 
“Know what authority you have killed and what hearts you have torn, and be certain that from now on you will have no peace or comfort until you receive the punishment for your deeds.”
Al-Kaabi described the attack as the beginning of a long-term religious and ideological war, adding that targeting sanctities would expand the scope of conflict and that response and revenge remain on the agenda. He concluded by quoting a Qur’anic verse stating that oppressors will know what fate awaits them.
The statements followed multiple Israeli-American airstrikes on Popular Mobilization Forces positions in Iraq. On Monday, a Hashd al-Shaabi fighter was martyred and another wounded in an airstrike on a military site in the Jarf al-Sakhar area north of Babylon province.
On Sunday, PMF headquarters in the Qaim district of Anbar province near the Syrian border were bombed by American-Israeli warplanes, martyring two and wounding five others. Some media reported strikes on ambulances attempting to reach the wounded.
The PMF announced on Sunday that four of its fighters were martyred in an aerial aggression in Diyala province on the Iranian border. On Saturday morning, a PMF command headquarters south of Baghdad was targeted, with the organization reporting two fighters martyred in an American airstrike on Babylon province.
The Kataib Hezbollah operations command in Iraq issued a statement on Saturday afternoon declaring that it would soon target U.S. bases in the region in response to American aggressions.