Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah addressed the public on Friday for the first time since the Gaza war broke out on October 7. He said the Al-Aqsa Flood operation was planned to be 100 percent Palestinian. The operation was kept secret from the “Axis of Resistance.” “The fact that no one knew about it proves that this battle is entirely Palestinian in nature,” Nasrallah said.
He explicitly praised and justified Hamas’ terrorist attack. The decision to undertake this mission came “wisely, courageously and at the right time,” said Nasrallah. Already in the first hours of the attack it was clear that the “enemy was distracted, lost and amazed,” said Nasrallah. The attack heralded a “new historical phase of the conflict.”
Nasrallah accused the USA of bearing sole responsibility for the ongoing war in Gaza. Israel is only an “executive instrument,” said Nasrallah. The USA is the “big devil,” according to the Hezbollah chief. “The United States is the main responsible for all the massacres, from Hiroshima to Vietnam to Afghanistan,” he said. “They must pay the price for their aggression.”
According to him, a victory for the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip over Israel is also in the interests of neighboring Arab countries. “Gaza’s victory today is also in the national interest of Egypt, Jordan and Syria,” Nasrallah said.
Above all, a Hamas victory is “in Lebanon’s national interest.” Israel threatens Lebanon and its people. The two goals in the war are now an “end to aggression” and a victory for the “Palestinian resistance” and Hamas, which rules in the Gaza Strip.
The Hezbollah Secretary General addressed his supporters via video message. There were gatherings across the country to hear the speech together. In the southern suburbs of Beirut alone, thousands of supporters of the Shiite organization gathered with waving Hezbollah and Palestine flags or pictures of the Secretary General. They shouted “God bless Nasrallah.”
Hundreds of people also followed the Hezbollah chief’s speech in the Iranian capital Tehran. Numerous government supporters gathered in central places in the metropolis to listen to the Secretary General’s words.
