In a widely publicized televised address on Friday, November 2, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah ridicules a “weak” Israel, warns America not to get involved, but leaves the options open for a broader conflict.
How reports TOI, the Hezbollah leader said his militia is already engaged in fighting with Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border and threatened further escalation as the four-week-old war between Israel and Hamas still continues.
According to the source AP, the leader of the Lebanese radical group did not announce that he would fully enter into the conflict. He said Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas militants in Gaza, was not afraid of US warnings not to interfere in the war. Speaking about the US military deployment in the region, he said that US warships in the Mediterranean “will not scare us.”
He also said Hezbollah was prepared for all options and warned: “We can resort to them at any time,” adding that fighting on the Lebanese-Israeli border “will not be limited” to the scale seen so far.
His speech was widely expected as a sign of whether the conflict between Israel and Hamas will escalate into a regional war. Thousands of people gathered in a square in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital to hear him speak.
Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday: “Some are saying that I am going to announce that we have entered the battle. We have already entered the battle on October 8.” And it argues that Hezbollah’s cross-border strikes are diverting Israeli forces that would otherwise be focused on Hamas in Gaza.
Nasrallah praised Hamas’s unprecedented invasion of Israel, in which militants attacked farming villages, towns and military posts, killing 1,400 people in Israel: “This major, large-scale operation was entirely the result of Palestinian planning and execution. Great secrecy made this operation very successful.”
Nasrallah’s address to supporters came a day after the most significant escalation of fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli troops on the Israel-Lebanon border since the start of the war, and on the day of a visit to Israel by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call for the protection of civilians in battles with Hamas as Israeli troops tightened their cordon around Gaza City.
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