Lebanese Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke during a televised speech at a memorial service for Taleb Abdallah, a senior field commander in the group who was killed on June 11 along with three other Hezbollah fighters in an Israeli attack on the southern Lebanese village of Jouaiyya, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon on the 19 June 2024. | Photo credit: Reuters
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has new weapons and intelligence capabilities that could help it target more critical positions inside Israel in the event of an all-out war, the militant group’s leader warned on June 20.
Hassan Nasrallah’s comments come as the months-long cross-regional conflict between Hezbollah and Israel appears to be reaching a boiling point and a day after a top US envoy met with Lebanese officials in the latest attempt to ease tensions.
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“Now we have a new weapon. But I won’t say what it is,” he said in a televised speech commemorating a Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon last week. “When decisions are made, they will be seen on the front lines.”
Hezbollah has used locally made explosive drones for the first time since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza last October, as well as surface-to-air missiles against Israeli jets.
Nasrallah said in 2021 that Hezbollah had 100,000 fighters but now he claims the number is higher, without elaborating. He also said he rejected offers from allied countries and militias in the region that could add tens of thousands to their ranks.
A nearly 10-minute long video allegedly recorded by Hezbollah surveillance drones and released Tuesday shows parts of Haifa – a city far from the Israel-Lebanon border. Nasrallah in a speech on Wednesday said that Hezbollah has more footage – a real threat to reach sites inside Israel.
Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, visited Israel’s air defense forces near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday, saying Israel was aware of Hezbollah’s capabilities shown in the video and had a solution to the threat.
“The enemy knows only a small part of our capabilities and will see them at the time of need,” he said.
Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has exchanged attacks with Israel almost daily since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7, with the aim of drawing Israeli forces away from the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah attacks escalated after Israel stepped up its offensive last month into the southern Gaza city of Rafah and escalated last week after an Israeli strike killed Hezbollah commander Taleb Sami Abdullah, the most senior militant killed so far in the Israel-Hamas war.
In addition, on Tuesday, the Israeli army said that it “approved and validated” the plan to attack in Lebanon, although the decision to start the operation must come from the country’s political leadership.
The warning from both sides follows a visit by President Joe Biden’s senior adviser Amos Hochstein, who this week met with officials in Lebanon and Israel in the latest effort to ease tensions. Hochstein told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that this was a “very serious situation” and that a diplomatic solution to prevent a bigger war was “essential”.
Nasrallah said a wider war with Lebanon would have regional implications and that Hezbollah would attack other countries in the region that support Israel, citing Cyprus, which hosts Israeli forces for training exercises.
Only a cease-fire in Gaza would end the Lebanon-Israel border war or attacks on Western and Israeli-linked targets from Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iraqi militias allied with Hezbollah.
Israel views Hezbollah as the most immediate threat, and the two fought a 34-day war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Hebollah’s military capabilities have grown significantly since then, and the United States and Israel estimate the group, along with other Lebanese militant factions, has around 150,000 missiles and rockets. Hezbollah has also been working on precision-guided missiles.
Hezbollah said at least four fighters were killed in an Israeli strike on Wednesday as Hochstein returned to Israel for new meetings there.
Lebanese state media reported attacks along the border and near the coastal city of Tyre, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) away. The Israeli military said two Hezbollah launches damaged several vehicles in northern Israel.
Kamel Mohanna, head of the Amel Association, an NGO that provides health services in various parts of Lebanon, said the association’s health center in the town of Khiam was hit and damaged by the Israeli attack.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah and other militants, but also more than 80 civilians and non-combatants. In northern Israel, 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in attacks launched from Lebanon.
