Israel carried out numerous artillery, drone and air strikes in southern Lebanon villages on Thursday, January 4 killing at least four Hezbollah soldiers and destroying substantial amounts of civilian infrastructure. These attacks come less than a day after Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah warned against Israel’s attempts to start a war with Lebanon.
In retaliation to Israeli attacks Hezbollah launched several rockets inside northern Israel. The number of casualties or amount of destruction on the Israeli side were not confirmed.
On Wednesday, Nasrallah warned that, in case Israel declares a full scale war against Lebanon, “we will have no limits, no restrictions, no rules of engagement, or boundaries.” He also asserted that any war with Hezbollah would be “tremendously costly”.
Nasrallah said that, Israel’s continued genocide in Gaza for almost three months now, proves “that the international community, international bodies, and the international law are incapable of protecting anyone.”
Nasrallah, however, reiterated that “the land of Palestine…. is solely for the Palestinian people and no one else.” Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, he added, generated greater popular support for the resistance both among Palestinians and Arabs.
Nasrallah was delivering a scheduled address on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani and leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a US drone attack in 2020.
During his address Nasrallah also mentioned the recent Israeli attack in Beirut in which Saleh al-Arouri, political bureau member of Hamas, was killed along with three others. He called al-Arouri’s assassination as a “major, dangerous crime” and said that Hezbollah will not be silent about it.
Nasrallah praised the Palestinian resistance against Israeli attacks and stated that Hezbollah will continue to fight against Israel irrespective of the threats issued by the US or other European countries.
US fails to contain regional escalation
Despite the US attempt to contain the regional responses to Israel’s war in Gaza by threatening countries and resistance militias to stay away from it and increasing the deployment of its forces in the region, resistance groups have not backed down.
The Houthis in Yemen and PMF in Iraq have declared their complete solidarity with Palestinians and their struggle. Houthis have blocked the Red Sea for ships heading to Israel and have targeted Israeli territory through drones. Despite US attacks, Iraqi militias have continued to target the US bases in the region seeing it to be the primary backer of Israeli genocide in Gaza.
However, this has been met with violent retaliation from the US. On Thursday January 4, Hajj Moshtaq Taleb al-Saidi was assassinated by a US airstrike outside the headquarters of PMF in Baghdad. One other person was killed in the attack and six others were injured. On December 31, 2023, the US attacked three Yemeni vessels in the Red Sea, killing at least 10 soldiers.
Israel has been attacking southern Lebanon since October 8, a day after it launched its war in Gaza. At least 143 people, including Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Israeli attacks so far. Hezbollah has retaliated to Israeli attacks targeting military establishments and communication towers in which at least 11 Israeli soldiers have been killed according to the Press Tv.
Due to Hezbollah’s retaliation, Israel had been forced to evacuate most of its settler population from the northern Israeli towns.
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden deployed one of its aids Amos Hochstein to the region apparently to ease the rising possibilities of regional escalation following Israel’s assassination of al-Arouri.
Reports indicate that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also scheduled to visit some of the capitals in the region early next week.
Reflecting on Nasrallah’s speech, journalist Rania Khalek noted that it is obvious that Hezbollah does not want to escalate the war with Israel but is forced to react to its provocations as a strategy of deterrence against the latter’s wish to drag Lebanon into the war.
“Only the strong can protect themselves, that is the world order the US has created and now more than ever it is clear for everyone to see,” Khalek wrote on X referencing Nasrallah’s declaration on the failure of international community to prevent Israeli from genocide in Gaza and highlighting the need to be prepared against all kinds of attacks.
