Photo: Hassan Fneich Agence France-Presse Hezbollah activists at the funeral of Hussein Ibrahim, one of three Hezbollah-affiliated paramedics killed in an Israeli raid, in Adaysseh, southern Lebanon, on March 5.
France Media Agency in Beirut
March 14, 2024
- Middle East
The leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, whose party has exchanged fire with Israel for months in support of Palestinian Hamas, said on Wednesday that Israel was too weakened to launch a war against Lebanon.
“The Israeli army is exhausted […] on the northern front, in the West Bank and Gaza,” said the leader of the Islamist movement, Hassan Nasrallah, during a televised speech.
These comments come as Israel launches air raids deeper and deeper into Lebanese territory, against positions of the powerful Hezbollah, accentuating the threats of open war.
“This enemy and this enemy’s society are showing signs of fatigue,” he continued, saying that the Israeli army “lacked the manpower” to start a war against Lebanon.
In particular, he once again accused the Israeli army of imposing “media censorship” regarding the real number of soldiers killed in the exchange of fire with his pro-Iranian formation.
In Israel, according to the army, ten soldiers and seven civilians died in the cross-border violence which began after the unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli territory.
In Lebanon, at least 322 people were killed, most of them Hezbollah fighters and at least 56 civilians, according to an AFP count.
The incessant exchanges of fire, which were initially confined to areas near the border, have also displaced thousands of people in southern Lebanon.
On Tuesday, the Israeli air force carried out raids on the Baalbeck region, in eastern Lebanon, about a hundred kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border, which left two people dead in the ranks of pro-Iranian training.
Hezbollah, for its part, announced that it had launched around a hundred rockets on Israeli military positions.
“The resistance has so far deterred the enemy from going to war against Lebanon,” insisted Hassan Nasrallah.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently warned that a possible truce in Gaza would not undermine Israel's “objective” of pushing Hezbollah from its northern border, through force or diplomacy.
In northern Israel, tens of thousands of people have also been displaced by the exchanges of fire.
Hezbollah says it will only end its attacks on Israel if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.