Beirut (AFP)
Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened Sunday Israel with retaliation after an armed drone attack on the stronghold of the powerful armed movement in Beirut.
"What happened (Saturday night) is a suicide bomber attack against a target in the southern suburbs of Beirut," Nasrallah said in a live broadcast on a giant screen in front of his supporters. this same suburb, a stronghold of Hezbollah.
Mr. Nasrallah, whose movement is one of Israel's pet peeves, did not say what this "target" was. He described the attack as Israel's "first act of aggression" in Lebanon since the war between the two camps in 2006.
"I say to the Israeli army at the borders, so get ready this night, and wait for us one day, two, three, four," the Hezbollah leader said. "What happened will not happen" without a riposte, he warned in a tone sometimes angry and raising the tone.
Addressing "all the inhabitants of occupied Palestine (Israel)," he said: "Do not live, do not rest, do not be reassured, and do not bet for a moment that Hezbollah will allow (...) such aggression ".
The Hezbollah leader said a reconnaissance drone flew over the low-lying southern suburbs Saturday night and was followed by an armed drone.
He saw in the attack that Hezbollah has done damage but no casualties, a phase "very dangerous" for Lebanon if nothing was done. Hezbollah will not "allow" the repetition of such drone attacks "whatever the price" and "will do anything to prevent them".
Nasrallah, whose fighters are on the side of the regime in neighboring Syria at war, also spoke of Israeli air raids Saturday night near the Syrian capital Damascus.
"There were only Lebanese youth from Hezbollah in the area that was bombed" by the raids, he said, refuting Israeli statements that the target was the Iranian force al-Quds, the elite unit of the Guardians of the Revolution.
Nasrallah confirmed the deaths of two Hezbollah fighters. The target was "a place where Hezbollah youth rest, it was not a military position."
© 2019 AFP