A top adviser to former US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Israel must be allowed to finish defeating Hezbollah after killing the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Jared Kushner, who is also former US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law praised the Friday killing of Nasrallah in a massive Israeli airstrike on a southern Beirut suburb.
Kushner was seen as the architect of Trump's "Deal of the Century" peace plan which would have allowed Israel to annex huge tracts of the West Bank and was unanimously rejected by Palestinians.
Israel on Sunday claimed that there were 20 other top Hezbollah commanders with Nasrallah in the underground headquarters when it was hit, saying all of them were killed, including top commander Ali Karaki.
Karaki’s death was officially announced by Hezbollah on Sunday.
The strike brought down multiple residential buildings in the very densely populated south of Beirut region and caused wide-scale destruction.
Kushner called Nasrallah’s death "the most important day in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords breakthrough," referring to the controversial US-mediated normalisation deals signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco in 2020 in which he also played a key role.
"I have spent countless hours studying Hezbollah and there is not an expert on earth who thought that what Israel has done to decapitate and degrade them was possible," he wrote in a statement on X.
The former US government official also criticised current President Joe Biden’s administration for trying to de-escalate the situation in Lebanon and push for a ceasefire deal.
"Anyone who has been calling for a ceasefire in the north [of Israel with Lebanon] is wrong. There is no going back for Israel. They cannot afford now to not finish the job and completely dismantle the arsenal that has been aimed at them. They will never get another chance," Kushner said.
"The right move now for America would be to tell Israel to finish the job. It’s long overdue. And it’s not only Israel’s fight."
He said Iran was "immeasurably weakened" by the elimination of Hezbollah’s senior command by Israel and claimed Tehran no longer has an "intact proxy" that poses a serious threat to Israel.
"Iran is now fully exposed," wrote Kushner. "The reason why their nuclear facilities have not been destroyed, despite weak air defence systems, is because Hezbollah has been a loaded gun pointed at Israel. Iran spent the last forty years building this capability as its deterrent."
He also accused Iran of trying to assassinate Trump.
"President Trump would often say, 'Iran has never won a war but never lost a negotiation.' The Islamic Republic’s regime is much tougher when risking Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrian and Houthi lives than when risking their own."
"Their foolish efforts to assassinate President Trump and hack his campaign reek of desperation and are hardening a large coalition against them."
Kushner also celebrated the "brilliant" detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon on September 17 and 18 respectively, which killed 37 people and wounded thousands.
Although most of the casualties were Hezbollah-affiliated personnel, the attack, carried out by Israeli intelligence, also killed and maimed civilians including children.
"After the brilliant, rapid-fire tactical successes of the pagers, radios, and targeting of leadership, Hezbollah’s massive weapon cache is unguarded and unmanned. Most of Hezbollah fighters are hiding in their tunnels. Anyone still around was not important enough to carry a pager or be invited to a leadership meeting."
He added that it would be "irresponsible" not to let Israel take advantage of a battered Hezbollah and "neutralise the threat."
"The right move now for America would be to tell Israel to finish the job. It’s long overdue. And it’s not only Israel’s fight."
After nearly a year of low-level cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah in parallel to the war in Gaza, Israel on September 23 launched a violent aerial campaign on Lebanon, bombarding large parts of the country’s south and east and killing 558 people in a single day.
It marked the deadliest day in Lebanon for decades.
Israel continues to launch dozens of heavy airstrikes across the east and south as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Over 700 have been killed in the nearly week-long offensive, but over 1,640 in total since border hostilities began last year, including both civilians and combatants.
Close to a million people have been displaced, sheltering in safer parts of the country.