‘Whoever wants to prevent a regional war – and this is addressed to the Americans – must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza,’ he said. He accused the U.S. of impeding calls for a ceasefire and an end to the fighting.
Since Hamas militants launched an unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon’s southern border has seen escalating tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group, stoking fears of a broader conflagration.
‘Your fleet in the Mediterranean do not scare us… we are ready to face the fleet you threaten us with,’ he threatened.
It came on a day U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken after meeting with top Israeli leaders repeated President Biden’s warnings against anyone seeking to expand the conflict.
‘We are determined that there not be a second or third front opened in this conflict,’ Blinken said, mentioning that the U.S. had dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike groups are both operating in the region, and the U.S. has increased its troop presence.
Blinken also pushed Israel to ‘do more to protect Palestinian civilians,’ warning that the killing of innocent civilians would set back peace efforts. ”There will be no partners for peace if they’re consumed by humanitarian catastrophe,’ Blinken said.
Since October 7, the U.S. has experienced more than two dozen attacks on U.S. forces in the region, including at the al-Asad air base in western Iraq.
Nasrallah appeared to put little stock in the administration’s public and private urgings to protect civilians, while negotiating to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza.
‘Whoever wants to prevent a regional war – and this is addressed to the Americans – must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza,’ he said.
Hezbollah’s chief has warned of a further escalation on Israel’s border with Lebanon and said Hamas’s war with the Jewish state is ‘now on more than one front’.
The powerful group’s leader praised the Alaqsa Flood – the name used by Hamas for its vicious assault last month – and said the ‘glorious jihadi operation’ had led to an ‘earthquake‘ in the Jewish state, revealed the weakness of Israel and its army, and established a new historical phase in the battle.
Any escalation, he said, depends on the events in Gaza and Israel’s actions. ‘We will not be limited to this,’ he said, suggesting an escalation was possible, while also telling the US that his Iran-backed group was ready to face its warships.
‘Your fleet in the Mediterranean do not scare us… We are ready to face the fleet you threaten us with,’ Nasrallah said, addressing the US. ‘Whoever wants to prevent a regional war must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza.’
The United States ‘impedes a ceasefire and the end of the aggression’, he added.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, commented on Nasrallah’s remarks when asked them by reporters aboard Air Force One Friday.
‘We will not engage in a war of words. That’s not what we’re going to do from here on Air Force One or even at the podium. The United States does not seek escalation. We’ve been clear about that, or widening of the conflict that Hamas brought on to Israel.
It was the leader’s first speech since the October 7 massacre, and raised fears his terror group is set to enter the conflict and spark a wider war in the Middle East.
Hezbollah, a potent military force in the region, has been engaging with Israeli forces along the Lebanese border since it fought a war with Israel in 2006.
The 63-year-old is addressed thousands in Beirut from an unknown location. Celebratory gunshots rang out as people waving Hezbollah’s yellow flag packed into a square in the city’s suburbs to watch the broadcast.
In his wide ranging address, he called the war in Gaza ‘decisive’ and said there were two goals: to stop aggression against Gaza and to ensure victory for Hamas.
Nasrallah also claimed that his terror group had ‘entered the battled on October 8’ – the day after Hamas’s attack, which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel.
‘Some claim we are about to engage in the war. I am telling you, we have been engaged in this war and battle since October. The Islamic resistance and Lebanon started operations the very next day,’ he said.
Earlier in his speech, he thanked the ‘Iraqi, Yemeni hands that joined this battle’ and celebrated pro-Palestinian protests that have been seen around the world.
‘We must salute all those who took to the street in support and solidarity with the Palestinians, from all over the world,’ he said.
Nasrallah also thanked ‘martyrs’ killed along the border that Lebanon shares with Israel which has seen clashes in recent weeks.
‘Those fallen martyrs are alive in God’s paradise,’ he said.
Nasrallah insisted the decision to launch the attack was ‘100 percent Palestinian’ and that those responsible had kept it secret from everyone. He said the decision to keep it a secret did not upset anyone in what he called the ‘axis of resistance’.
He added that the on-going conflict is purely a Palestinian issue, and has no relation to any regional issue, and denied any Hezbollah involvement in the attack.
‘This glorious, blessed large scale operation [is] a hundred per cent Palestinian in terms of decision and execution,’ he said. ‘The Palestinians had kept it secret.’
‘For a whole month, Israel could not offer a single military achievement,’ Nasrallah said, mocking Israel’s military. He added Israel could only get back hostages – 240 of of which were taken back into Gaza by Hamas terrorists – through negotiation.
Turning to the United States, Nasrallah said America was ‘entirely responsible’ for the Hamas attack, and said groups in Iraq and Syria were ‘wise’ to attack US bases, and said the Islamic Resistance in Iraq was starting to ‘take its responsibility’.
Responding to the US suggesting it would strike Hezbollah targets from two American warships stationed in the Mediterranean should the group get involved in the war, he said the ships did not scare Hezbollah.
With his speech, Nasrallah broke weeks of silence since war broke out between Hamas and Israel following the October 7 terror attack. Since then, Lebanon’s southern border has seen escalating tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between Israel and Hezbollah – raising fears that the conflict could spread in the Middle East.
The leader described the clashes across the border as unprecedented since 1948, the year that Israel was founded and of the Arab-Israeli war.
Source: Daily Mail Online
