Nasrallah: Hezbollah entered war on October 8
Lebanon’s Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his movement entered the ongoing battle between Israel and Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian resistance group launched its surprise attack in southern occupied territories.
Delivering his first public speech since the start of the conflict, he said the daily exchange of fire with Israeli forces along the Lebanese border might seem modest but it is very important, calling it unprecedented since 1948.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah has been escalating its operations by the day and forcing Israel to keep its forces near the Lebanese border instead of Gaza or the occupied West Bank.
‘All options open’
Nasrallah noted that all options in the Lebanese front are open, saying that Hezbollah is ready for all possibilities.
Nasrallah also confirmed that 57 Hezbollah fighters have been killed so far.
He added that “the enemy” is threatening Lebanon and the Lebanese while it sinks in the sands of the Gaza Strip.
He said that the Operation Al-Aqsa Storm led to an earthquake in Israel, noting that it has strategic and existential repercussions and will leave its effects on the present and future of Israel.
He called the Palestinian group’s decision to launch the October 7 operation right, wise and courageous, adding that it was carried out with the right timing.
He added that what is happening in Gaza shows Israel’s foolishness and inability because what it is doing is killing children and women.
The Hezbollah leader called Israel “frail” and said that for a whole month, it has been unable to record a single military achievement.
‘US responsible for conflict’
Addressing the US deployment of warships in the region, Nasrallah said Hezbollah is not intimidated.
He accused the US of being entirely responsible for the war in Gaza and calls Israel merely an executive tool.
The Hezbollah chief warned that whoever wants to prevent a regional war must quickly stop the war on the Gaza Strip.
Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Palestinian territory and sent in ground troops, with the Health Ministry in Gaza saying 9,227 people have been killed, two-thirds of them women and children.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Friday described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “something approaching revenge”, in some of the strongest criticism of Israel by a leader of a European Union member state.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said on Friday that if the US and a number of European countries had been fairly tried for their crimes against Iranians during Iraq’s imposed war on Iran, as well as 75 years of oppression of Palestinians by Israel, the world would not have been witnessing today the repetition of such crimes in the Palestinian territories.
‘Crimes against humanity’
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “crimes against humanity” were being committed in Gaza, and that Ankara was pushing for an international peace conference.
“There is no concept that could explain or excuse the brutality that we have witnessed since October 7,” Erdogan said during a summit of Turkic States in the Kazakh capital Astana.
United Nations experts called on Thursday for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, saying time was running out for Palestinian people there who find themselves at “grave risk of genocide.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Friday at the start of a new regional tour.
“Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself... to make sure that this October 7 never happens again,” Blinken told journalists as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.
He claimed he would seek “concrete steps” from Israel to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a Republican plan to provide $14.3 billion in aid to Israel and cut funding of the Internal Revenue Service, despite Democrats’ insistence it has no future in the Senate and the White House’s promise of a veto.
Battles on the ground
Fresh Israeli strikes hit northern Gaza on Friday, with the Health Ministry reporting at least 15 deaths in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighborhood and seven in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Late on Thursday, the army said troops had encircled Gaza City, with Hamas fighters warning Gaza would be a "curse" for Israel whose soldiers would go home "in black bags".
On Friday morning, the Hamas fighters said they were engaged in close combat with troops northwest of Beit Lahia and had fired missiles at Israeli military vehicles.
Israel on Friday also sent back thousands of Gazans who had been working in Israel when the war erupted.
The UN human rights office said it was "deeply concerned" about the move.