Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has this week issued a new threat to Israel, proclaiming that in the event of war Israel “will see things it has not seen since [its] establishment”.
Vowing that the terror group is “weighing [its] decisions”, Nasrallah proclaimed that “if Israel bombs cities in Lebanon, we’ll bomb cities in Israel, and if it bombs villages in Lebanon, we’ll bomb towns in Israel. If the IDF bombs our military targets, we can also attack Israel’s military targets”.
The warning, made from an undisclosed location, follows a major three-day exercise completed by Israel’s Air Force simulating a large-scale war with Hezbollah. The exercise was initiated by a hypothetical Hezbollah attack on an Israeli aircraft – a scenario based on a real-life Hezbollah attack on an Israeli UAV with anti-aircraft missiles earlier this month. Israel’s military did not respond to that earlier incident.
The exercise – ‘Galilee Rose’ – featured simulations of Hezbollah attacks on Israel, including the firing of cruise missile and massive rocket barrages on military and civilian targets, as well as mock Israeli airstrikes on 3,000 Hezbollah targets in one day.
Israeli security officials believe that Hezbollah has grown increasingly emboldened in its military activities, but remains cautious of triggering a full war with Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran’s army has reportedly test-fired an advanced ‘smart’ missile with a range of 185 miles. The country has also confirmed it will be holding a joint naval drill with Russia in the Indian Ocean in the “near future”. This is the second such drill since 2019, when the two nations held a four-day exercise alongside China’s navy. The drills are evidence of the increasing ties Iran is seeking with China and Russia and are seen by commentators as an attempt to pressure U.S. President Joe Biden to return to the beleaguered JCPOA nuclear accord.
