In his second address in 48 hours, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was keen to justify the opening of the southern front against Israel, amid growing doubts about its worth and utility in supporting Gaza.
“To those who ask us why we are fighting on the front (in South Lebanon), our answer is that there are two aims: to put pressure on the enemy and its government to stop the aggression against Gaza, and to ease the pressure on the resistance in Gaza,” Nasrallah said Friday in a speech meant to pay tribute to Mohammad Hassan Yaghi, one of Hezbollah’s founders, who died a week ago.
Further justifying his party’s engagement on the southern front, which has caused the displacement of tens of thousands of residents of border villages and resulted in extensive damages in addition to the killing of more than 10 civilians, Nasrallah claimed that “it aims to reinforce the balance of deterrence” with Israel.
He also claimed that Israel doesn’t admit the real number of casualties that its army has sustained on the front with Lebanon, saying, “If you knew the real number of dead and wounded in the enemy’s ranks, you would understand the necessity of fighting on this front.”
In an obvious bid to mobilize support for the continuous border confrontations among Hezbollah’s popular base, Nasrallah boasted that since October 8, when it opened its purported “support front” for Gaza, the Iran-backed party has targeted all Israeli border positions, a large number of back posts and 17 colonies, a total of some 670 military operations in 3 months.
“That’s why our public should close ranks and show solidarity on all levels in this war, both morally and financially. This war is Lebanon’s war, just as it is for Gaza and al-Quds (Jerusalem),” Nasrallah stressed.
On the killing of Hamas’s top official Saleh al-Arouri in an Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut’s southern suburb on January 2, Nasrallah said the “crime will not go unpunished” and the “inevitable response” will come “on the terrain,” in an obvious reference to the battlefield.
