BEIRUT: Hezbollah will confront “Israeli-American aggression” and will not surrender despite the “imbalance in capabilities,” the head of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Naim Qassem said Wednesday night in a televised speech.
“We are facing aggression... our choice is to confront it until the ultimate sacrifice, and we will not surrender,” the Hezbollah leader declared in his first speech since his party launched rockets toward Israel on Monday and Israel began a bombing campaign in Lebanon.
Qassem rejected the notion that his party started the current round of fighting, saying: “What Israel did after the rocket salvo was not a response. It was an aggression that had been prepared in advance.”
“Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance are responding to the Israeli-American aggression and this is a legitimate right... For us this is an existential defense.”
The Middle East war expanded to Lebanon on Monday, and Israel later said its troops had entered south Lebanese towns and villages.
The Lebanese authorities said on Wednesday the Israeli campaign had killed at least 72 people and displaced more than 83,000.
The Lebanese government on Monday announced the “immediate ban” of Hezbollah’s military activities and demanded the party surrender its weapons, months after it committed to a gradual disarming of the party, which the party has repeatedly rejected.
In his speech Wednesday, Qassem criticized the new decision by the Lebanese government, saying: “Instead of the Lebanese government moving to condemn the Israeli-American aggression and look for ways to confront it, it turned against the resistance to complete its error and align itself with Israeli demands.”
“The topic of the resistance and the weapons of the resistance is not a subject of dispute for anyone or with anyone. It is a legitimate right. We are fighting in Lebanon in defense of our people, the future of our children and our country,” he added.