[ad_1]
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned on Wednesday (June 19) that Israel would have “nowhere to escape” if an all-out war was launched against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and threatened Cyprus if it opened its airport to Israel.
“The enemy knows very well that we are prepared for the worst… No place… will be immune from our rocket fire,” Nasrallah said in a televised address.
Israel, he said, must “guard against us on land, at sea and in the air.”
“The enemy is really afraid that resistance forces will infiltrate into the Galilee region in northern Israel,” he said, adding that this was possible “in the context of the war on Lebanon.”
Israel and Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese movement allied with Hamas, have exchanged cross-border fighting almost every day since the Palestinian militant group launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the war in the Gaza Strip.
The two rival countries last fought in 2006 and fighting has escalated in recent weeks, with the Israeli military saying on Tuesday that “the operational plan to attack Lebanon has been approved and confirmed.”
Earlier, Foreign Minister Israel Katz had warned that Hezbollah would be completely wiped out by “total war.”
Nasrallah said the Iran-backed group had been informed that Israel could use Cyprus airports and bases if Hezbollah attacked Israeli airports.
Cyprus is a member of the European Union, has good relations with Israel and Lebanon, and is close to the coasts of both countries.
Nasrallah threatened: “Opening Cyprus airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to attack Lebanon will mean that the Cypriot government will participate in the war, and the resistance forces will also deal with the Cypriot government as part of the war.”
Britain also retains sovereign control over two base areas in Cyprus, its former colony, under the terms of a 1960 treaty that granted the island independence.
‘New weapons’
Nasrallah’s comments came a day after U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, who brokered a maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon in 2022, called for “urgent” de-escalation during a visit to Lebanon.
He also met with senior Israeli officials during his regional visit.
“Everything that the enemy says and everything that the mediators convey, including the threat of war on Lebanon … cannot scare us,” Nasrallah said.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah released a more than nine-minute video showing aerial footage the group filmed in northern Israel, including sensitive military, defense and energy facilities and infrastructure in the city and port of Haifa.
Nasrallah said the video was shot by a drone that “flew for several hours” over Haifa port.
He also warned that the group had only used “some” of its weapons since October last year.
“We have acquired new weapons,” Nasrallah said, without elaborating.
“We have developed some weapons … others we will keep for future use,” he said.
Nasrallah added: “A few years ago we were talking about 100,000 fighters… Today we have significantly exceeded” that number.
“Even in the worst-case scenario, the resistance has more manpower than it needs,” he said.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israeli troops and positions in northern Israel on Wednesday and announced the deaths of four of its fighters.
According to an AFP tally, cross-border violence has left at least 478 people dead in Lebanon, most of them militants but also 93 civilians.
Israeli authorities said at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed in the north of the country.
[ad_2]
Source link
