Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah gave a show of strength intended to demonstrate the extent of his party’s capabilities, claiming that it is “prepared for the worst-case scenarios.” Not only did he issue threats against Israel, but, this time, he also targeted Cyprus, threatening to change the situation in the Mediterranean.
“An invasion of Galilee remains conceivable in case of escalation of the conflict,” he declared in a speech delivered on Wednesday in memory of Taleb Sami Abdallah, a senior Hezbollah official killed on June 12 in an Israeli strike in Jwaya, southern Lebanon.
During a lengthy exposition, he argued for the superiority of his party against an Israeli army depicted as terrified, confused and demoralized. A speech worthy of the greatest epic narratives!
To support his thesis, Nasrallah endeavored to detail Hezbollah’s human, military and strategic resources, which he estimated to be “greater than ever before.” With “over 100,000 fighters” and an arsenal including “a very large number of drones,” he asserted that his organization was prepared to fight “without limits” if open war was declared against Lebanon.
In this context, Nasrallah specified that not only does his organization procure new weapons despite all constraints, but it also manufactures a large number of missiles itself. According to him, Hezbollah possesses very precise data on the positions of the Israeli army, as well as a list of targets it can strike to “shake the foundations of the Israeli entity.”
In this regard, he repeatedly mentioned the “Hodhod” drone (Arabic for “hoopoe”), which is said to have recorded videos in Israeli territory and reached Haifa – the ultimate Hezb success, according to him. The images supposedly filmed by the Hodhod drone were broadcast Tuesday evening on Hezbollah’s media networks, coinciding with the visit of United States envoy Amos Hochstein to Lebanon.
Nasrallah argued that “negotiations for a settlement in the region should take place in Israel, not Lebanon,” alluding to American efforts to de-escalate tensions along the Lebanese-Israeli border. In this context, he reiterated that “the only condition for calming the fronts of support in the region is the cessation of Israeli aggression against Gaza.”
Furthermore, Hassan Nasrallah mentioned “operations conducted by the Israeli army in Cyprus.” He did not hesitate to consider the island as “a party to the war if it makes its airports and infrastructure available to Israel.”
Nasrallah went on to declare that his party will fight “on land, in the air and at sea” in what he described as a “huge” move in the Mediterranean.
Addressing the regional situation, Nasrallah deemed Israel’s victory in Rafah “illusory” and described the American-British intervention in the Red Sea against the Houthis as a “failure.” He sarcastically criticized Israel for “always claiming to have the strongest army in the region!”
To conclude the series of glories attributed to the resistance, the “sayyed” affirmed that it is God who protects Lebanon, supporting the fighters of the pro-Iranian organization. According to him, the Lebanese people “should therefore not be afraid,” a message far from reassuring.
