The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group warned on Tuesday that his fighters would attack Israeli ships in the Mediterranean if the Jewish state imposes a sea blockade on Lebanon in any future war.
Hassan Nasrallah said his Iranian-backed group is now capable of destroying any military or commercial ships heading to Israeli ports. Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war in 2006 during which Israel imposed a sea and air embargo on Lebanon, saying it needed to prevent the rebels from being resupplied with weapons. Nasrallah said on Tuesday that Hezbollah now had the capability to inflict as much harm on Israel as it did in Lebanon during the 2006 war. “In any future war, if you blockade our coasts and ports, all the military, civil and commercial ships heading to ports in occupied Palestine along the Mediterranean will come under Hezbollah rocket attack,” Nasrallah said.
Addressing supporters through a video link at a huge rally south of Beirut, Nasrallah repeated past threats that his group would rocket Tel Aviv airport and other strategic targets if Israel’s military strikes Lebanese infrastructure as it did in 2006. He added: “We are capable of targeting, striking and destroying your ships as they head to any port on the coast of occupied Palestine from north to south.”
“When the world sees how these ships will be destroyed in the regional waters of occupied Palestine, nobody will dare go there anymore,” Nasrallah added. During the 2006 fighting, Hezbollah slammed about 4,000 rockets into Israel, while Israel bombed the group’s strongholds in Lebanon’s south and east as well as its headquarters in the suburb of Dahiyeh south of the capital Beirut.