Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah presented the same old characters in his threatening speech. However, the announcement of the expansion of the war was left on the operating table, which is rare good news for the Middle East, writes HS’s foreign correspondent Ilmo Ilkka.
of Israel incompetence and brutality were exposed in the aftermath of the October 7 attack. The Great Satan, the United States, is behind the war in Gaza and is responsible for igniting it. No scenario of an expansion of the war has been ruled out.
The above statements were heard on Friday, when the leader of Lebanon-based Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah stepped out of the shadows for the first time since the October attack by Hamas. The speech was marketed cryptically and ominously this past week, among other things, in the form of video ads.
Nasrallah’s speech contained the elements that can be expected from the leader of a terrorist organization like him.
If the people watching the speech were prepared for the expansion of the war in Gaza, they could breathe a sigh of relief. Nasrallah’s speech, while full of pathos, did not include a declaration that Hezbollah was entering full-scale war.
Hezbollah has certainly been shelling the northern parts of Israel for weeks. However, it is not about such large-scale military operations that one could talk about a full-scale war.
There have been deaths in Israeli and Hezbollah attacks. According to information from the AFP news agency, 72 people have died on the Lebanese side, of which at least 54 were Hezbollah fighters. The rest were fighters from other parties or civilians. On the Israeli side, at least six soldiers and one civilian have died.
The decision not to join the war with full force indicates that Hezbollah is not necessarily as strong as it has made it out to be. It may also be that the leadership of the organization has listened to the Lebanese, whose enthusiasm for yet another war is unbridled.
The aircraft carriers and other military forces sent by the United States to the Eastern Mediterranean certainly played their part in the decision.
Iran’s role behind the scenes must also be taken into account. Hezbollah is dependent on Tehran for funding and armaments, but at least publicly Nasrallah is an ally of Iran and not a pawn. However, Hezbollah’s leadership will certainly turn a deaf ear to Iran’s word.
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The Lebanese’s eagerness for yet another war is undiminished.
Nasrallah stressed in his speech that no option is excluded when talking about the situation in Israel and Lebanon, or more specifically Hezbollah. However, threatening Lebanon would be pointless, he says, because Israel is already sinking into the sands of Gaza.
According to Nasrallah, Hamas carried out its October attack completely independently, hidden from the eyes of its allies. It sounds pretty incredible that Hezbollah had no inkling of the impending terrorist attack.
The leader of the political and terrorist Hezbollah congratulated and effusively praised the acts of violence and attacks in other countries in the region. In his speech, Nasrallah gave flattering messages to other organizations rather than directly swearing and assuring his own organization’s military capabilities.
The fighters in Iraq, who have attacked US bases, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen received their share of the praise. The latter have attacked Israel with drones and missiles. In return, according to the news agency Reuters, Israel has sent its ships to the Red Sea to prevent destructive weapons from hitting its country.
In any case, it seems that Hezbollah did not want to take a step towards expanding the war into Lebanon on Friday.