Eurasia Press & News
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Saudi Arabia Friday that Iran would destroy it if it started a war in the region.
“Don’t gamble on a war with Iran,” the terror group’s leader said in a speech broadcast on Lebanon’s Al-Manar television. “It will destroy you. Your house is made of glass as is your economy.”
Iran’s foreign minister warned Thursday that any attack on his country over a drone and missile strike on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry would result in “all-out war,” further pushing up tensions across the Persian Gulf.
Nasrallah also said that a decision to “confront” Israeli drones in Lebanon has “led to a decrease in the number of violations of Lebanese airspace.”
He said Hezbollah rejected any attempt by Israel to create “new rules of engagement, and we have the right to continue to address the drones.”
Earlier this month Hezbollah claimed to have shot down an Israeli drone that entered Lebanese airspace. The army confirmed that a drone fell inside Lebanese territory but did not acknowledge that it had been shot down.
The Hezbollah chief also commented on recent elections in Israel, following which it remains unclear who will be Israel’s next prime minister.
“It doesn’t matter to us. Right, left, center, it’s all the same. We don’t see much difference,” he said. But he claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has done everything to stay prime minister. He began striking in Iraq, intensified attacks in Syria, led an attack in [Beirut], escalated rhetoric over Gaza, announced he would annex the West Bank and almost caused widespread conflict in Lebanon.”
On Thursday Lebanon officially accused Israel of launching attack drones loaded with explosives at Beirut last month. In the pre-dawn hours of August 25, one UAV exploded in the air outside the offices of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, causing damage to the building. A second crashed nearby and was retrieved by the terror group. The attack reportedly targeted the Lebanese terror group’s precision missile project.
While Israel has acknowledged carrying out thousands of airstrikes inside Syria against weapons transfers to Iran-backed fighters and to keep the Islamic Republic from gaining a foothold there, it rarely acknowledges individual strikes.
The ambiguity is part of a strategy seen as helping give Tehran and Damascus cover from needing to strike back to save face. Israel has appeared to apply the same strategy in Iraq, where Israel has been reported to have carried out a number of strikes on Iran-backed militia positions near Baghdad.
