Nasrallah confirmed that Hezbollah possesses missile systems that can bomb Eilat, southern Israel (Reuters)
Today, Friday, the Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened Israel to pay the price for the blood of Lebanese civilians that it shed by targeting the cities of Nabatieh and Al-Sowanah in southern Lebanon the day before Wednesday. He also threatened to bomb Eilat, southern Israel, in response to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant’s threat to attack Beirut.
Nasrallah added - in a speech at a party event - that the party is in the heart of a real battle in which the martyrdom of fighters is expected, but harming civilians is something that he does not accept, as he put it.
He stressed that Israel will pay the price in blood and not in military equipment and spy devices, adding that the occupation army's targeting of civilians in southern Lebanon is a development that must stop. He also pointed out that Israel could have avoided killing civilians, but it deliberately targeted them to put pressure on the resistance.
He said that yesterday, Thursday, the party targeted the Kiryat Shmona settlement with dozens of Katyusha rockets and a number of "Al-Falaq" missiles as an initial response to Israel's targeting of children and women in southern Lebanon.
In response to Gallant's threat yesterday to bomb Beirut, Nasrallah said that the party has a missile system that can bomb Eilat.
He pointed out that the Israeli army's targeting of the party's leaders and killing them will not push Hezbollah to abandon its responsibility and stop its front, according to his description.
He added that if Washington stops supplying weapons to Israel, the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip will stop immediately.
Yesterday, Thursday, 7 Lebanese citizens from one family were killed, and more than 6 others were injured, in the Israeli aircraft bombing of a residential building in the center of the city of Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, while a strike on the town of Al-Sowaneh killed 3 civilians, a woman and two children from the same family.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said that the raid targeted a Hezbollah leader and his assistants.
The number of Hezbollah deaths since the start of the military escalation with Israel on October 8 has risen to more than 200.
Gallant said yesterday that Israel has no interest in a war with Lebanon, but it can do in Beirut what it did in Gaza, and pointed out that Israel may pay a heavy price if war occurs, but it will be disastrous for Lebanon and Hezbollah, as he put it.
The bombing continues
At the field level, Hezbollah announced that it bombed the Israeli military site of Al-Malikiyah with a Burkan missile, and the Ruwaisat Al-Alam site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms with missile weapons, causing direct hits.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese News Agency reported that Israeli aircraft bombed the outskirts of the towns of Aita al-Shaab, Barkat Bint Jbeil, Yater, and Beit Lev. The Israeli army also fired heavy machine-gun shells from the Metulla settlement towards the neighborhoods of the town of Kafr Kila, adjacent to the colony’s borders.
Source: Al Jazeera + agencies