Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to avenge last month's slaying of the group’s top commander and said that most Lebanese are united in their wish to see Israel disappear.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah will choose the “time, the place, the way and the means” by which it will seek revenge for the death of Imad Mugniyah in a Damascus car bombing on February 12.
“The Israelis are worried, as they should be, because our blood will not be spilled in vain,” said Nasrallah via video link at a ceremony at his Beirut stronghold marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for Mugniyah.
Israel has denied Hezbollah accusations that it was involved in his murder.
“Those who killed Mugniyah must be punished and must taste vengeance,” Nasrallah said to the cheers of thousands of Hezbollah supporters.
But he played down the possibility of a repeat of its 2006 summer war with Israel.
“I don't want to make projections, but I would like to point out that war has become costly for Israel,” Nasrallah said.
“The decision to go to war is not one the Israeli leadership can make lightly, because in Lebanon there is the power of the resistance, the will of the resistance and the culture of the resistance.”
“It is no longer simple for the United States to wage war against Iran, or for Israel to launch a war against Syria or Lebanon, as was the case before the 2006 July War,” Nasrallah added, referring to the devastating 34-day conflict between his group and Israel.
The war, sparked by Hezbollah’s capture of two Israel soldiers in a cross-border raid, left some 1,200 Lebanese dead, most of them civilians. More than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were also killed.
Nasrallah said that although his group was still bent on Israel's destruction, it would nonetheless continue negotiations to free Lebanese prisoners in Israeli custody.
“Although they killed Mugniyah, we will not stop negotiations to free the detainees. We will continue our work,” he said.
Nasrallah added that a poll conducted by clerics following Mugniyah’s death showed that nearly all Lebanese, be they Sunni, Christian, Druze or Shia, wanted to see Israel disappear.
“Eighty-five percent of the Lebanese people support the decline of the Zionist regime,” he said.
“But this does not mean that we are going to open a battlefront in the South of the country. This is not Lebanon's responsibility.”
Nasrallah had threatened to wage an “open war” against Israel after Mugniyah’s death, prompting the Jewish state to alert its citizens travelling abroad to exercise extreme caution for fear of reprisals.
-AFP/NOW Staff