Hezbollah supporters raise their fists in celebration during a ceremony to commemorate the death of a senior Hezbollah commander in Dahiya, a suburb of southern Beirut, Lebanon on Wednesday.
Bilal Hussain/AP
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Bilal Hussain/AP
BEIRUT — As fighting escalates along the Lebanon-Israel border, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is warning Israel that if the conflict slips into war, Israeli forces face a much more powerful enemy than in the past. will have to face
Nasrallah spoke on television for more than an hour on Wednesday in which he eulogized a senior field commander killed in an Israeli airstrike last week. His comments were among the harshest on the conflict since Iran-backed Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel across the border with Lebanon in support of Hamas in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had approved plans for an offensive to push Hezbollah further back from the border, but still hoped for a diplomatic solution. Nasrallah also reiterated that Hezbollah does not want war, but that the current fighting risks slipping into a wider war.
Nasrallah said that in previous wars with Israel, Hezbollah had only hoped to attack Israel's Meron Air Base, the center of its Northern Israel Operations Command. Since the conflict began, Hezbollah says it has fired dozens of rockets and missiles at the base. The group was created with the help of Iran after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Hezbollah fought another war with Israel in 2006.
“Whatever you see we can see and whatever we can attack, we are leaving no stone unturned on this battlefront,” Nasrallah said, speaking at an undisclosed location. “And it won't be random bombing. Every drone will have a target. Every missile will have a target.”
He noted that Hezbollah has a large stockpile of drones, which he describes as a surplus of fighters and new weapons to be unveiled. He did not specify what they were.
He said that even after attacks on convoys loaded with weapons in Syria, Hezbollah continues to receive weapons from Iran. He said that Hezbollah is also preparing weapons in Lebanon.
This week, Hezbollah released a nine-minute video it said it shot with an Iranian-made drone showing high-resolution images of the Israeli port of Haifa and specific buildings and ships. He also identified other potential target cities in Israel.
Nasrallah expressed happiness on Wednesday that the drone had eluded Israel's extensive air defenses.
He warned that the Mediterranean would also be a target in any war.
“Now they are busy in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea. The brothers of Yemen are trying,” he said, referring to Yemeni Houthi attacks on ships and tankers linked to Israel.
If they start a war in Lebanon, the situation in the Mediterranean will be completely different. All coastlines, all ships, all ports,” he said, adding that Iran would target those locations as well.
Analyst Lena Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Nasrallah's comments and recent threats from Israel were likely intended to defuse tensions on both sides.
“This is part of the psychological warfare that both Hezbollah and Israel have been involved in, in which each side wants to show the other that it has the upper hand when it comes to information and is a deterrent,” he said. works.”
Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus, saying the EU member was hosting Israeli military exercises in its mountains, similar to those in Lebanon, and allowing Israel to use its air bases.
Cyprus and Israel have a joint defense treaty and have held joint military exercises in the past. Nasrallah said that allowing Cyprus to use its bases to target Lebanon would make it “part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war.”
Cypriot President Nicos Christodoulides responded by saying that his country was not involved in the Gaza war but was reacting on humanitarian grounds.
Nasrallah said the only way for Israel to end the conflict on the Lebanese border – as well as with Iraqi and Yemeni groups that support Hamas – is to end the war in Gaza. He said there was little incentive for Hamas to accept the US-backed deal, which offered a limited ceasefire in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.
“They want us to talk to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian brothers,” he said. “Accept what? Accept a solution that allows fighting to stop for six months and takes away one of the strongest elements they have?”