Iranian-backed Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah ended his long silence on Saturday night with fiery statements aimed at Israel during an interview with the Lebanese news station Al-Mayadeen.
It was believed that Nasrallah had been ill, and possibly had been hospitalized with an apparent heart attack, as was reported in Lebanese media several weeks ago. Nasrallah denied those reports during this interview.
“Any Israeli aggression, whether it be war or the assassination of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon or Syria – we will respond to it,” Nasrallah declared. “Any attack, any aggression is, in our eyes, a declaration of war.”
Nasrallah mocked Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot for the launch of Operation Northern Shield – in which six cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon were destroyed – saying that the announcement the operation had ended was untrue: “They continued until yesterday to search for tunnels.”
The Hezbollah leader added, “It took Israelis a long time to expose them. . . One of the tunnels discovered recently is 13 or 14 years old, and was located entirely in Israeli territory, meaning all of Israel’s technology and capabilities failed to detect this tunnel.
“I confirm that some of these tunnels are older than United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701,” Nasrallah said, implying that the tunnels predated the 2006 Second Lebanon War. He dared Israelis to question their leaders: “How do they know that Netanyahu and their other leaders are correct when they say that all the tunnels have been destroyed?”
Nevertheless, it is with the south that Nasrallah suggested that Israel might see a conflict heat up sooner rather than later.
“Gaza will not tolerate continued aggression,” he said. “You saw what happened when one rocket from Gaza hit Ashkelon. Imagine if rockets started landing on Tel Aviv. In a future war, all of occupied Palestine will be struck by our rockets,” he said. As with Hezbollah in Lebanon across Israel’s northern border, to Israel’s south, both Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations in Gaza are armed, equipped, trained and funded by Iran.