BEIRUT– 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 Wednesday.
Hassan Nasrallah’s comments came as the months-long simmering cross-border 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 his latest attempt to ease tensions. .
“Now we have new weapons. But I won’t say what they are,” he said in a televised speech commemorating a top Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon last week. “When the decision is made, they will be seen on the front line.”
Hezbollah has used locally made explosive drones for the first time since the start of the conflict. War between Israel and Hamas in Gaza last October r, as well as surface-to-air missiles against Israeli aircraft.
Nasrallah said In 2021, Hezbollah will have 100,000 fighters. but now he stated that the number is much higher, without giving more details. He also said that he has rejected offers from allied countries and militias in the region that could add tens of thousands to his ranks.
A nearly 10-minute video allegedly filmed by a Hezbollah surveillance drone and released Tuesday shows parts of Haifa, a city far from the Israel-Lebanon border. Nasrallah, in his speech Wednesday, said Hezbollah has much more imagery, an apparent threat that it could reach deep into Israel.
Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, visited Israeli air defense soldiers near the Lebanese border on Wednesday and said Israel was aware of Hezbollah’s capabilities demonstrated in the video and has solutions for them. threats.
“The enemy only knows a small part of our capabilities and will see them when necessary,” he said.
Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has been exchanging attacks with Israel almost daily since war broke out in Gaza on October 7, aiming to draw Israeli forces away from the besieged Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah attacks intensified after Israel expanded its offensive last month toward the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and intensified further last week after a Israeli strike killed top Hezbollah commander Taleb Sami Abdullahthe highest-ranking militant killed so far during the war between Israel and Hamas.
Also on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon, although the decision to launch such an operation would have to come from the country’s political leaders.
The warnings from both sides followed a visit by President Joe Biden’s senior adviser Amos Hochstein, who this week met with officials in Lebanon and Israel in his latest attempt to reduce tensions. Hochstein told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that it was a “very serious situation” and that a diplomatic solution was “urgent” to avoid a major war.
Nasrallah said a broader war with Lebanon would have regional implications and that Hezbollah would attack any other country in the region that backs Israel, citing Cyprus, which has hosted Israeli forces for training exercises.
Only a ceasefire in Gaza would stop fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border or attacks on Western and Israeli-linked targets by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iraqi militias allied with Hezbollah.
Israel views Hezbollah as its most direct threat, and the two fought a 34-day war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Hebollah military capabilities have grown significantly since then, and the United States and Israel estimate that 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 of its fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday as Hochstein returned to Israel for a new round of meetings there.
Lebanese state media reported the 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, director of the Amel Association, an NGO that provides health services in different areas of Lebanon, said the association’s health center in the city of Khiam was hit and damaged by the Israeli shelling.
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 were killed in attacks launched from Lebanon.
___
Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
