“Given the prominent role of this …martyr in the defeats [suffered by] the Zionist regime [of Israel] against the Islamic resistance [movement], the Zionists regime definitely bears the full responsibility for this criminal and terrorist act,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said on Wednesday.

She also offered Iran’s sincere condolences to Lakkis’s family and his comrades on the killing of the top Hezbollah commander, Press TV reported.

“Around midnight on Tuesday, one of the commanders of resistance, Hassan Hawlo al-Lakkis, was assassinated in front of his house in the Saint Therese district of Hadath, as he returned from work,” Hezbollah said in a statement published on Wednesday.

The statement added, "The brother martyr Hassan al-Lakkis spent his youth and all his life in this honorable resistance since its inception up until the last moments of his life."

"The Israeli enemy is naturally directly to blame. This enemy must shoulder complete responsibility and repercussions for this ugly crime and its repeated targeting of leaders and cadres of the resistance," the Hezbollah statement noted.

A Lebanese security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said assailants shot Lakkis with a pistol equipped with a silencer at close range after he parked his car in the garage on the ground floor of the residential building, where he lived in the Hadath neighborhood, situated more than 3 kilometers (two miles) south of Beirut.

The unnamed official further noted that Lakkis was struck by five bullets in the head and neck. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died early Wednesday from his wounds.

HH/HH