(Beirut) The leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, whose party has been exchanging fire with Israel for months in support of Palestinian Hamas, said on Wednesday that Israel was too weakened to launch into 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, in 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 the society of this enemy are showing signs of fatigue,” he continued, estimating 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 exchanges 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, Israeli aircraft carried out raids on the Baalbeck region, in eastern Lebanon, about a hundred kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border, which left two dead in the ranks of the pro-Iranian formation.
PHOTO MOHAMED AZAKIR, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Lebanese army soldiers secure a site hit by an Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon on March 12, 2024.
Hezbollah, for its part, announced that it had launched around a hundred rockets at 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, by 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.