@MiddleEastEye / Twitter.com
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, issued a warning to Israel on Wednesday during a televised speech marking 16 years since the Second Lebanon War.
During the speech, Nasrallah stated that the Hezbollah drones intercepted by the IDF last week were “only the beginning” and explained that they were on route to the Israeli offshore gas field “in order to make people working in the area know that they are not safe”.
Despite Lebanon’s leaders condemning the drone launch, the Hezbollah chief claimed that force and violence is the only way to protect the countries interests, adding that “if you want to prevent Lebanon from exercising its right to save itself by extracting oil and gas, no one will be able to extract oil and gas”.
Nasrallah continued by stating that “resistance and strength” is Lebanon’s “leverage and only source of power” in the maritime border negotiations being mediated by the U.S. He continued by exclaiming that “all options are on the table” and added that “war is much more honourable than the situation Lebanon is heading to now — collapse and starvation”.
He told the audience not to “believe the Americans”, following the statement made by the U.S. energy envoy last month, which announced that Lebanon had agreed to drop demands for control of part of the gas field claimed by Israel.
Last week’s drone incident launch and this week’s threat are the most recent events in the growing tensions between Israel and Lebanon over the location of the gas rig and the long-term efforts to agree to a maritime border. The tensions have increased in recent weeks after a gas production vessel arrived in Israel to launch extraction operations at the gas field, drawing condemnation from Lebanon, which had laid claim to parts of it.
