“Any war on Iran will mean the whole region will erupt,” said the head of the Iran-backed movement in a televised speech marking Quds Day, explaining that such a war was therefore unlikely.
“And any American forces and American interests will be permissible” as a target, he said.
Nasrallah Warns Region to Burn if Iran Attacked, Slams Hariri’s Mecca Stance
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned on Friday that if there was a war against Iran the whole Middle East region would “erupt,” amid escalating U.S.-Iranian tensions.
U.S. President Donald “Trump, his administration, and his intelligence know well that any war on Iran will not remain confined to Iran’s borders,” Nasrallah said.
“Any war on Iran will mean the whole region will erupt,” said the head of the Iran-backed movement in a televised speech marking Quds Day, explaining that such a war was therefore unlikely.
“And any American forces and American interests will be permissible” as a target, he said.
Hizbullah is listed as a “terrorist group” by the United States, and has fought several wars with U.S ally Israel.
Nasrallah on Friday also slammed a proposed U.S. peace deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Trump has dubbed “the deal of the century”.
“It’s a void deal… a historic crime,” he said of the plan, that has already been rejected by the Palestinians as it is expected to largely favor Israel.
“This deal is a loss of Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic rights,” Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah also rejected what he called U.S. conditions for mediating a border and maritime dispute with Israel.
He said that Washington is “using the talks” to discuss, and even make threats over, degrading his group’s capabilities, bringing up an Israeli claim that Hizbullah has precision missile factories.
Nasrallah acknowledged his group has the weapons but denied it produces them.
“We have precision missiles in Lebanon, and enough to be able to change the face of the region,” he said.
“So far in Lebanon there are no factories for precision missiles,” he added.
Nasrallah threatened for the first time, however, that Hizbullah could consider setting up such factories if Washington continues to use the talks on border demarcation to discuss his group’s capabilities.
He said it is Lebanon’s right to defend itself. “The Americans have no business with this. It is our right to have weapons to defend our countries and it is our right to manufacture any weapons.”
A U.S. official has been shuttling between Israel and Lebanon, technically still at war, to settle the dispute. Washington considers Hizbullah a terrorist group.
Nasrallah said he is supportive of the Lebanese government’s positions in the talks.
“My problem is allowing such discussion (of Hizbullah’s capabilities)” he said. “This door must be closed.”
Moreover, Nasrallah boasted that “today the axis of resistance is stronger than ever, contrary to what some are claiming.”
He also said that the Lebanese delegation’s stance at Mecca’s emergency Arab Summit is “rejected and condemned,” noring that “it does not conform to the government’s policy statement or dissociation policy.”
Addressing the summit, Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned what he called “continuous attempts to infiltrate the Arab societies,” in reference to Iran.
He also strongly deplored “the attacks on the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” calling for “the widest Arab solidarity in confronting them.”
War with Iran to set entire region ablaze: Nasrallah
The secretary general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has warned that a war against Iran would not stop at the Islamic Republic’s borders, and its flames will engulf the entire Middle East region.
The rhetoric and threats of a war against Iran have ebbed because US President Donald “Trump, his administration, and his intelligence apparatus know well that any war on Iran will not remain confined to Iran’s borders,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a Friday televised speech broadcast live from Beirut.
“Any war on Iran would mean the whole region will be set ablaze,” he noted, warning that the US’ interests in the region will be annihilated if such a war breaks out.
“All US forces and interests in the region will be exterminated and those who conspired (with them) will pay the price; first Israel, then Al Saud,” Nasrallah added.
In early May, the Trump administration announced plans to build up Washington’s military presence in the Middle East to counter unspecified Iranian “threats,” shortly after toughening oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
However, after several wars of words with Iranian officials over the past few weeks, Trump has gradually softened his tone, emphasizing that his country is not at all after a military conflict with Iran.
During a visit to Japan on Monday, Trump used a more conciliatory tone, saying the US was not seeking a regime change in Iran and that the Islamic Republic “has a chance to be a great country with the same leadership.”
Deal of the century a ‘historic crime’
In his Friday remarks, Nasrallah also slammed Trump’s so-called peace plan for the Middle East, and said what the US describes as the “deal of the century” is a “void deal” and a “historic crime”.
“This deal is a loss of Palestinian, Arab and Islamic rights,” Nasrallah said.
“It is a religious, moral, national and political obligation to oppose [the peace plan], since this is a deal that is unjust and is contrary to the rights of the holy places.”
He said “the responsibility is clear; we must confront this deal, and we are capable of obstructing it.”
According to Nasrallah, the current situation shows that the plan is on its way to failure.
“The United States, Israel and other regimes in the region are working to implement the deal, alongside an axis that opposes it,” he explained. “There is a conflict between the two factions, and I hope we can prevent the historic crime that is liable to occur in our land.”
Nasrallah also highlighted the military capabilities of the resistance front against the Israeli regime, saying, “The Palestinian resistance today is hitting Tel Aviv and what is beyond it, and it is capable of hitting all the Zionist settlements.”
He said the Lebanese Hezbollah also has enough precision-guided missiles to “change the face of the region.”
“We have in Lebanon precision rockets that are able to target certain posts in Israel and that would change the face of the region,” he said, adding that the resistance movement would respond to any Israeli aggression on any resistance target in Lebanon “quickly, directly and strongly”.
US using border talks to target Hezbollah missiles: Nasrallah
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah alleged Friday that a U.S. envoy tasked with mediating the land and maritime border demarcation issue between Lebanon and Israel was using his position to target Hezbollah’s precision missile arsenal.
In a speech to mark Al-Quds Day, Nasrallah criticized David Satterfield, the acting U.S. undersecretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, for, he said, exploiting the border negotiations for Israel’s benefits.
“The Americans want to use the negotiations around the maritime and land borders to solve a side issue for the sake of Israel, which it has failed to resolve throughout the years,” Nasrallah said, referring to the missiles.
Satterfield has been traveling between Beirut and Tel Aviv to mediate the land and maritime border dispute between the two countries. The current de facto border, the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line, has at least 13 points on land and 856 square kilometers of water that are disputed, the latter of which have gained increasing importance as Lebanon prepares to begin oil and gas exploration later this year.
Though Satterfield has said the discussions have a long way to go, the talks have amped up in recent weeks, after President Michel Aoun presented the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon with his country’s “unified stance” on the issue. The stance was reportedly agreed on by himself, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Speaker Nabih Berri.
As recently as Friday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said the discussions were in the Lebanese people’s best interest.
Nasrallah said that while his party possessed precision missiles, it does not have factories in Lebanon for manufacturing precision missiles – “yet.” However, he was quick to add that he believes it is Hezbollah’s “right” to own and manufacture any weapon to defend Lebanon, and warned that Satterfield should focus on the border demarcation issue and only that.
If the U.S. continues using its role as Nasrallah says it has, the Hezbollah leader continued, the party “will lay the foundation to have precision missile factories in Lebanon.”
These developments come as tensions have heated up in the Middle East between the U.S. and Hezbollah’s main regional backer, Iran. On Friday, Nasrallah said the U.S. knows that a war against the Islamic Republic would not be confined to Iran’s borders. “The entire region will be on fire,” he said.
Iran’s strength means that the U.S. will not enter a war with Iran, he said.
With all the “conspiring and hatred” the U.S. has directed at Iran, Nasrallah said, if Iran was weak a war would have broken out long ago. A war in the region has become highly unlikely because the U.S. and its allies know the strength of Iran and its partners, he added.
Nasrallah went on to reject the stance adopted by Lebanon at the emergency summit that convened Arab leaders in the Saudi city of Mecca overnight Thursday, saying the position had violated Cabinet’s policy of disassociation from regional conflicts.
At the summit, Hariri had called for Arab solidarity in the face of regional conflicts and threats posed by “foreign intervention.” The Lebanese premier condemned what he called an “attack on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia,” and called for “the widest Arab solidarity in confronting them,” a statement from his office reported at the time.
The summit was called after the UAE said that oil tankers had been attacked off the coast of the emirate of Fujairah. Shortly afterward, Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a drone strike from Yemen on oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia.
Hariri’s position “does not represent Lebanon,” Nasrallah said.
Friday’s speech marked the 40th anniversary of Al-Quds Day, established by Iran in 1979 to show support for Palestinians wishing to return to their homeland. On the occasion, Nasrallah said, “The main challenge today in front of Palestine and Quds is ‘the deal of the century,’ or Trump’s deal.”
It is “our duty to confront it,” he said.
The Hezbollah leader claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel are working day and night with Arab regimes to realize the deal.
Although the details of the U.S. president’s long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan have yet to be made public, Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is set to unveil its first part at a conference in Bahrain scheduled for June 25-26.
The Apocalyptic Revolutionary 