TEL AVIV — Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday threatened Israel, implying that the Shiite terror group may try to target a facility widely believed to be a nuclear installation in the south of the Jewish State.
During a speech commemorating 11 years from the end of the Second Lebanon War, Nasrallah said that “The defeat suffered by Israel in 2006 will occur again, but more forcefully.”
“Every time a senior Israeli official speaks of Hezbollah growing stronger, they are in fact admitting Israel’s defeat to Hezbollah, since the goal of the war was to destroy Hezbollah: It shows that Israel failed in the central goal of the 2006 war,” Nasrallah said, according to a report in the Ynet news website.
The terror group’s leader, speaking from inside a bunker as he has been doing ever since the 2006 war except on very rare occasions, threatened that any ground troops entering Lebanon will be met with fierce resistance.
The Hezbollah leader then referred to Israel’s plans to dismantle a massive ammonia container in Haifa, a decision made after the city commissioned reports that found that the chemical’s proximity to residential homes poses tremendous environmental and security risks in cases of either a war in which the tank would be targeted or an earthquake.
“An example showing that Israel respects the resistance and recognizes its power is the issue of removing the ammonia tank in Haifa: We hope they will also consider moving the nuclear reactor in Dimona since this is more dangerous and needs to be treated,” Nasrallah said.
The nature of the facility in Dimona is top secret but it is widely believed to be a nuclear facility and the place where Israel is believed to have developed nuclear weapons.
“Since the enemy knows the military war cannot achieve its goals and destroy the resistance, and that its costs will be dear, and on the other hand Israel cannot sit silently while Hezbollah grows stronger, then they turn to other means,” the Hezbollah leader said.
Nasrallah said Israel was counting on the Trump administration to exert pressure for this purpose, “on the Lebanese people, the Lebanese government and the supporters of Hezbollah and in fact, on anyone saying a good word. Each such person meets pressure and threats. They started with the law of financial sanctions and what is needed is not to surrender. I say to the American administration that they cannot, with all their means, harm the power of the resistance, its determination and its strengthening in Lebanon.”
In response to Nasrallah’s latest threats, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennet, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, released the following statement to the news media, including Breitbart Jerusalem:
Israel’s interest is to prevent another confrontation in Lebanon, and so our new strategy is simple: Lebanon equals Hezbollah, Hezbollah equals Lebanon. Unlike the Second Lebanon War, this time we won’t differentiate between the organization and the State of Lebanon. This means any attack by Hezbollah will cause destruction throughout Lebanon and its institutions.
Nasrallah, who wishes to be the ‘defender of Lebanon,’ will become the ‘destroyer of Lebanon.’ We do not seek war and will do everything to avoid it, but the other side must know there will be consequences for unilateral steps risking Israel’s security.