Pro-Iranian Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday blamed the United States for the ongoing war in Gaza and said “all options” were open to expanding the conflict on the Lebanese front with Israel.
• Also read: LIVE | 28th day of the Israel-Hamas war
• Also read: Unarmed US drones fly over Gaza to help search for hostages
• Also read: Blinken says he spoke to Netanyahu about “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza
In his first speech since the start of Hamas’ war against Israel on October 7, he reiterated that his movement was “not afraid of the fleet sent by the United States to the Mediterranean” and that he was ready to “show face.”
“You Americans know very well that neither your fleet nor your air combat will be of any use to you if war breaks out in the region,” he warned. “Your interests, your soldiers and your fleet will be the victims and the biggest losers.”
Washington responded by warning Hezbollah that it should not “try to profit from the war between Israel and Hamas.”
Hassan Nasrallah’s speech was eagerly awaited to find out whether he would drag Lebanon into the conflict. The day after the war, Hezbollah fighters intervened against Israel on the border between the two countries, but fighting remained limited.
Hassan Nasrallah hailed Hamas’ “heroic” fight in Gaza and reiterated that the Palestinian Islamist movement, its ally, made the sole decision to start the war against Israel and did not inform either Hezbollah or Iran.
He gave the United States “full responsibility” for the war in Gaza and said Israel was “just an instrument” of execution.
“America is preventing the ceasefire and stopping the aggression” in Gaza, he said in his televised speech to tens of thousands of his supporters in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Lebanese regions.
However, he emphasized to the US, whose diplomatic chief Antony Blinken visited Israel on Friday, that “those who want to prevent a regional war must quickly stop the aggression in Gaza.”
“Blessed Fight”
The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, which left at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, dead.
In this context, Hassan Nasrallah reiterated that Israel had “committed massacres” by regaining control of the kibbutz (collectivist agricultural villages) and towns near Gaza attacked by Hamas.
According to the Hamas government, more than 9,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the subsequent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Regarding the Lebanese front, Hassan Nasrallah reiterated that “we have entered the fight since October 8” to support Hamas.
“This front is a front in support of Gaza […] and it mobilizes a third of the Israeli army,” he said.
Hezbollah, which has a large arsenal, said it has since lost 54 fighters in clashes with the Israeli army in border areas.
“The possibility that this front will experience further escalation or all-out war (…) is realistic and can happen, and the enemy must prepare for it,” said Hassan Nasrallah.
He felt like “all options” were on the table.
“We tell the enemy who thinks of attacking Lebanon or carrying out a preemptive operation that this would be the greatest folly of their existence,” said the leader of Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
The Hezbollah leader stressed that Iran’s allies across the region had also mobilized to support Hamas, praising the Iraqi and Yemeni formations that “entered this blessed battle” by claiming fire on Israel.