Sen. Kelly: IDF Sent 'Powerful Message' by Killing Nasrallah

Israel sent Hezbollah a "powerful message" with the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, Sen. Mark Kelly told NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

"I think the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] sent a powerful message to Hezbollah," the Arizona Democrat said. "Israel needs to get its population back to the northern border. And this has been a really challenging situation that they've been faced with, and they've got to do something about it."

He said Nasrallah's death was good for Israel.

"It's good Nasrallah is dead. He's a terrorist. He's killed so many innocent people. And that needs to be addressed, and it has been addressed," he said.

"And the Iranians, you know, they're involved in this already through the Houthis and their other proxies and through Hezbollah. So I think the message has been sent, and my hope is that there is not further conflict in the northern part of Israel."

When asked about his insistence earlier in the war that Israel must do a better job of preventing civilian casualties or it would be appropriate to put conditions on some of the U.S. military aid to the country, Kelly said, "I've seen some positive responses from [Israel] when I have specifically asked them to do things differently.

"I've talked to Israeli leadership about this, and have made it very clear to them that the type of weapon that they use and where they use them, it actually, it matters. And it matters a lot."

However, Kelly acknowledged that "this is a dense urban environment. In my background as a naval aviator, flying in combat over Iraq and Kuwait, it’s a challenging situation, to be able to take out a target where there is a civilian population."

"Hamas is responsible for initiating this conflict with what happened about a year ago, on Oct. 7... [and Israel] cannot have this threat so close to their border," he said.

Kelly gave as an example of the complexity of the situation: "You could hit a target very accurately ... [with] guided munition with a Mark 80 series bomb, [but] if you're using naval gunfire, that doesn't work so well."

He emphasized that the "2,000 pound bomb that was used ... to take out Nasrallah ... I'm pretty confident that was a guided weapon that was used in that case."