The attack on October 7 was entirely led by Palestinians; it was right, wise and courageous, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday. It was his first public appearance after the Hamas conducted the attack on Israel which led to the war in Gaza.
He said, in its war against Hamas, Israel is committing a big mistake. “It is pursuing objectives in Gaza that cannot be achieved.”
The Hezbollah leader said that his powerful Lebanese militia was already engaged in unprecedented cross-border fighting with Israel. He threatened further escalations as the war rages on. However, he did not announce that his group would enter the conflict on a full-scale.
According to reports, Celebratory gunshots rang out over Beirut as thousands packed into a square in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs to watch a televised speech by Nasrallah, the leader of the militant Lebanese Hezbollah group.
Nasrallah said that Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers, was not deterred by US warnings to stay out of the latest war. Referring to US military deployment in the region, he said American warships in the Mediterranean Sea “will not scare us.”
His speech had been widely anticipated throughout the region as a sign of whether the Israel-Hamas conflict would spiral into a regional war, following weeks of limited exchanges between the Lebanese militant group and Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border.
(With inputs from agencies)
