Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has denied reports that the Lebanese Shiite terror organization is planning for war with Israel this summer, saying that the IDF would not start a military conflict with the group because the Israeli home-front is not prepared.
“What was published in the newspapers about a war with Israel was mistaken and badly timed,” he said, referring to reports by Kuwait’s al-Rai newspaper that he told Hezbollah commanders to expect to go to war with Israel this summer, a war in which he expected to be killed.
“I personally eliminate any possibility for a Zionist war on Lebanon.”
According to Hezbollah’s al-Manar website Nasrallah stressed that the leader of the Shiite terror group hopes to “participate in liberating occupied Palestine and pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque” in Jerusalem.
“Although the Resistance always prepares for the worst possibilities, I personally tend to rule out the possibility of witnessing an Israeli war on Lebanon because the enemy’s ‘home’ front is not ready for that,” he was said Monday night during a ceremony marking the anniversary of the founding of Hezbollah’s youth movement.
The Hezbollah leader said that while Israel boasts about their missile defense system, it cannot defend the country’s citizens against the threat posed by Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal.
“The events of the recent weeks have proved the unpreparedness of the Israeli home front. We saw how two missiles were fired by mistake from Gaza and landed in the Tel Aviv surroundings and then another missile was shot off from Gaza and landed north of Tel Aviv. All the Israeli measures were not able to do anything,” he said referring to a recent round of violence between Hamas and Israel.
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“Neither the air force nor the ground forces can settle the battle in favor of the Israeli enemy,” Nasrallah continued, adding that “the Zionists themselves acknowledge that their infantry troops are unable to wage any war.”
Israel and Hezbollah last fought a war – the Second Lebanon War – in 2006, and has since then morphed from a guerrilla group to an army with a set hierarchy and procedures. With the help of Iran, it has rebuilt its arsenal since 2006 and has hundreds of thousands of short-range rockets and several thousand more missiles that can reach deeper into Israel.
In addition to their massive arsenal Hezbollah also has the ability to mobilize close to 30,000 battle-hardened fighters, some of whom are expected to try to infiltrate into Israeli communities on the border to kill or kidnap civilians and soldiers.
In his speech Nasrallah also mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that the Palestinian people should not despair about US President Donald Trump’s yet-unveiled peace plan.
“We are in a battle between faith and despair. When the Palestinian people despair, it is possible to impose the ‘deal of the century’ on them, but as long as they have hope, no one can impose anything on them,” he said, adding that “if the Lebanese people would surrender to despair, Trump would give Lebanon to Israel.”
