TEL AVIV – Hezbollah’s chief on Tuesday said the Trump administration’s sanctions against Iran will not impact either Tehran or its proxies, and added that the Lebanese terror group was stronger than the IDF and ready for a new round of conflict with Israel.
“Iran has been facing sanctions since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address marking the 12th anniversary of the end of the 34-day Second Lebanon War with Israel in 2006. “He (President Donald Trump) is strengthening the sanctions but they have been there since 1979 and Iran stayed and will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the victory of its revolution.”
He added that Trump was “mistaken” in believing that the sanctions imposed last week would lead to riots in Iran that would oust the current regime.
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets all over Iran in recent months in protest over the country’s dire economic situation. Protesters have called for the ayatollah regime to stop financing proxy wars overseas.
According to U.S. estimates, Iran sends Hezbollah around $700 million annually.
Referring to the reimposition of sanctions last week, Nasrallah said: “I can tell you and I have accurate information they are building dreams, strategies and projects that Iran will head toward chaos and the regime will fall. This is illusion, this is imagination and has nothing to do with reality.”
He also said his group is not scared of a potential conflict with Israel.
“No one should threaten us with war and no one should scare us by war,” he said.
“We are not scared or worried about war and we are ready for it and we will be victorious,” he added.
“Hezbollah might not be the strongest army in the Middle East but it is certainly stronger than the Israeli army,” Nasrallah said, according to Lebanese news outlet Naharnet. “Because we have more faith in our cause and greater willingness to sacrifice.”
“The resistance in Lebanon — with its arms, personnel, expertise and capabilities — is stronger than ever,” Nasrallah said.
While the majority of experts concur that years of fighting in Syria have significantly weakened Hezbollah, the IDF maintains that the terror group has a massive missile stockpile and that a war would be devastating for both sides.
Nasrallah said attempts by Israel to convince Russia to build a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights in order to distance Hezbollah and other militias from the border with Israel would fail.
“The Israeli enemy, which has been defeated in Syria, is insolently seeking to impose its conditions in Syria, but this will not happen,” he stated.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.