Hezbollah leader warns about 'Israel's annihilation'

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said any Israeli act of aggression against the resistance front could lead to a major war in the region, causing the "annihilation” of the Tel Aviv regime.

The leader of the Lebanese resistance movement made the remarks in a televised address on Thursday on the occasion of the anniversary of the regime's withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

The Israeli regime pulled out its forces from the areas on May 25, 2000, after 22 years of occupation, after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the resistance movement.

Addressing Tel Aviv's threats of extensive military action, Nasrallah said, "You cannot threaten us with a large-scale war. It is rather us, who are threatening you with such warfare."

"The battlegrounds in this war will be packed with hundreds of thousands of [resistance] fighters," since the resistance has enlisted a far greater number of forces compared to the occupying regime, the Hezbollah leader said.

"The resistance is expanding by the day and has witnessed a great [positive] change in its financial and military capability," he added.

The Israelis have failed to reinforce their deterrence power, and have realized that they have to pay dearly for every act of aggression, Nasrallah noted.

He affirmed that the Zionists had rowed back from their threats following Hezbollah's recent military maneuvers, which struck fear into illegal Israeli settlers' hearts and also led to a drop in the Israeli currency shekel's value versus the dollar.

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"A large-scale war in the region will lead the Zionist regime to its annihilation," Nasrallah stated.

'Israel hiding behind walls'

Today, the Israeli regime is hiding behind walls, and is incapable of enforcing its conditions in any negotiations with the Palestinians, he stated.

"These are all the result of developments that have been imposed by the resistance," he pointed out. 

Since the Israeli regime's withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip -- a development that took place in 2005 -- the Israeli regime's and its allies' plot to place the regime in control of Muslim territories from the Nile to the Euphrates has ceased to exist, Nasrallah said.

The regime's removal of its forces from southern Lebanon also ended the global hegemony of the United States, the Hezbollah leader said.

"The circumstances are [rather] moving towards [the emergence of] a multi-polar world, and this is the exact thing that has made Israel fearful," he stated. 

The US is the Israeli regime's biggest supporter on the global stage, pumping billions of dollars worth of military aid into the regime's war machine each year, and invariably casting its veto against anti-Tel Aviv measures in the United Nations.

'Battle to continue until Lebanon's complete liberation'

The Hezbollah chief asserted that the resistance's battle against the occupying regime would continue until the complete liberation of Lebanon, whose Shebaa Farms have been under Tel Aviv's occupation since 1967.

"Anybody who thinks that the battle against the enemy is over has been afflicted with hallucination since a part of our soil is still under occupation," he said.

Nasrallah said he considers unity among the Lebanese army, people, and resistance to be the winning formula in the face of the occupying entity.

Hailing the resistance's victory

Praising the Lebanese resistance's victory against the occupying regime in 2005, Nasrallah said the victory set off the trend of the popular and devoted Lebanese movement's successes and marked the initiation of the regime's decline.

"The withdrawal came as a result of heavy attacks conducted by Hezbollah, [which forms] Lebanon's Islamic resistance," he said, adding the victory had not come by as a result of foreign interference, but rather materialized on the back of many years of sacrifice.

Thanking Iran, Syria

Further in his speech, Nasrallah thanked the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria for their support for the regional resistance axis.

Unlike the Israeli regime, which has been afflicted with division within itself, the resistance axis enjoys integrity and stability among its ranks, he remarked.

"Iranian President [Ebrahim Raeisi]'s stances during his [recent] trip to Syria bespeaks [existence] of integrity within the resistance axis."

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