The Secretary General of Hezbollah- a Shia Islamist political party in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, is set to give a televised address on Wednesday following the assassination of a senior Hamas official, Saleh Arouri, in an apparent Israeli strike in Beirut.
In a live reportage from Tel Aviv, ARISE NEWS Special Correspondent, Karl Bostic, also revealed that the country of Lebanon is not willing to join the war, as it will further cripple their economy, but according the caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Israel is trying to drag Lebanon into a war.
Speaking on the event of the possibility of the Israel/Hamas war now being on two fronts because of this attack, Bostic said, “Ever since August, these red lines have been laid out by Lebanon, at least by the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hassan Nasrallah was saying that any attack that kills a Hezbollah member or a Hamas member or a Lebanese on Syrian Lebanese soil or territory, that will be a red line and there will be consequences, that was said back in August. After the war, that similar refrain was repeated. If you listen to Israeli media here where I am in Tel Aviv, they’re saying that enough red lines have been crossed right now for there to be no consequences. They say the train has left the station for there to be no consequences.
“What that means is that now Hassan Nasrallah is in a difficult position because he has to give a response. In fact. He’s giving a major address that was prescheduled today at 6:00pm local time where we may get some indication of what to expect. But to put things in further perspective, Hezbollah is perhaps the world’s biggest non-state actor with it’s arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles, more that most governments in the world according to US estimates. In other words, these are not only missiles and rockets but precision guided rockets that can be fired from Lebanon into Israel.”
Bostic then revealed that while Hezbollah going to war with Israel will be catastrophic for the region, Lebanon itself does not want to go to war as it is going into recession because of the ongoing Israel/Hamas war.
Bostic said, “The caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said Israel is trying to drag us into a war. The economy is cratering. It’s heavily dependent on tourism at almost 30%. Right now, airlines are not flying to Lebanon, western foreigners are being told to leave Lebanon, the restaurant sector business is down 80%. They’re expecting inflation rate of more than 200% this year. So, the last thing the country needs is a war on its front, and that’s why Hezbollah may calibrate their response, meaning they’ll have maybe short-range exchanges that will go deep into Israel but will avoid Haifa, which is close to about 80 miles away, and perhaps, avoid Tel Aviv. But we’ll know more from the speech.”
Bostic then spoke on the killing of the Hamas official saying, “It’s the first time an Hamas official has been killed in Lebanon where Hezbollah is a stronghold, and of all places, Beirut. The last time Beirut was targeted was 2006. And this also come at a time when there were fears of this war spilling over the border into Israel.”
Bostic said that the most striking part of this operation were the details that went into it, as he said, “What happened yesterday, we’re now learning according to Israeli media, is that he was attending a meeting in a suburb of Beirut, that was on the third floor. Apparently because of very extremely good intelligence, they knew where the meeting was taking place, they knew who was there, they knew that there were no civilians, residents in the adjoining apartments, they also knew which car he was getting into. He was seen getting into a car, a drone with three missiles struck not only the car, but also that office going through a window with three missiles, cause they weren’t sure whether he was in the car or in the office. So, that just shows you how specific the intelligence was because they knew he was getting into the car, but to be extra sure, they hit both the car and that office, and that’s why you had about 6 or 7 people also killed.”
Bostic then said that Hezbollah, at this point, will be more worried at the person who gave the sufficient information for Israel to carry out this operation, as the assassination was carried out in an exclusively Hezbollah controlled environment.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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