Cross-border bombings against Israel will only end when Israel's “aggression” on Gaza stops, says Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said his armed group's cross-border bombings against Israel will only end when Israel's “aggression” against the Gaza Strip ceases, and he said diplomatic efforts so far to stop hostilities to along the Lebanese border seemed only to benefit Israel.
The Lebanese armed group has been exchanging fire with the Israeli army along Lebanon's southern border in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, which launched a cross-border attack from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7 that was met with intense Israeli bombings by land, air and sea.
Nasrallah said on Tuesday that his group would only stop their exchanges of fire if a complete ceasefire was reached in Gaza.
“On that day, when the shooting stops in Gaza, we will stop shooting in the south,” he said in a televised speech.
There are growing fears of another full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, with tens of thousands displaced on both sides of the border and regional tensions soaring.
Late last month, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israeli troops would “very soon go into action” near the country's northern border with Lebanon.
There has been a flurry of diplomatic activity in Beirut in recent weeks, with foreign ministers including Germany, France and the United Kingdom visiting in an effort to reduce tensions.
Nasrallah said many foreign “delegations” had traveled to Beirut with “proposals” to end hostilities in southern Lebanon, but said they only seemed to “have one goal, which is: the security of Israel, the protection of Israel.” “.
France's foreign minister delivered a written proposal to Beirut demanding that fighters, including Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit, withdraw 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, among other measures, Reuters news agency reported. , citing a document.
Without specifying the French proposal, Nasrallah said a delegation had “presented a document as a mediator.”
“You read the newspaper, there is nothing. There is the security of Israel,” she said.
“Let no one think that Lebanon is weak and afraid, or that it can impose conditions,” including the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters, Nasrallah said.
He added that if Israel were to further expand the war in Lebanon, his group would do the same.
He warned that if Israel decided to declare war on Lebanon, displaced people from northern Israel “will not return” and Israeli officials should “prepare shelters, hotels, schools and tents for two million people” who would be displaced.
Last week, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz warned that “time is running out” to reach a diplomatic solution in southern Lebanon.
“Israel will act militarily to return evacuated citizens” to its northern border area if a diplomatic solution is not reached, he said.
The cross-border bombing has killed about 200 people in Lebanon, including more than 170 Hezbollah fighters, as well as 10 Israeli soldiers and five Israeli civilians.
