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The influential leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese paramilitary group Hizbollah warned Israel that his group would consider “all possibilities” in its ongoing hostilities along Lebanon’s border, but stopped short of declaring an all-out war.
The highly anticipated address by Hassan Nasrallah on Friday was his first public comment since Israel declared war on Hamas in the wake of the October 7 attack by Gaza-based militants.
Hizbollah took the unusual step of announcing the speech several days in advance, and releasing several short video clips on social media of Nasrallah throughout the week, fuelling expectations that there would be a significant announcement.
Instead, Nasrallah delivered a fiery but carefully calibrated speech, in which he threatened both Israel and the US, which he held “directly responsible” for backing Israel in its continued “aggressions in Gaza”.
“Your threats on our region don’t work,” Nasrallah said, warning the US that a wider war could break out if it did not rein in its ally Israel. “You Americans know very well that if war breaks out in the region . . . the ones who will pay the utmost price are your interests, your soldiers and your fleets.”
The October 7 assault by Hamas militants killed 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials. Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground incursion into the Hamas-run enclave has killed more than 9,000 people, according to Gazan health officials.
There have been growing fears since the war broke out that Hizbollah and the other Iran-linked group in the region could be drawn more deeply into the conflict. Nasrallah suggested in his speech that the so-called Axis of Resistance was ready to escalate its coordinated attacks on US ground troops as well as its warships in the Mediterranean.
Hizbollah has been increasing the intensity of its attacks on Israel, using explosive-laden drones and surface-to-air missiles for the first time, as well as launching simultaneous attacks on 19 Israeli army positions.
Hamas fighters in Lebanon have also fired rockets into northern Israel, with Israel responding with air strikes and artillery shelling over the border. There have also been more than two dozen attacks on bases housing US and international troops in Iraq and Syria.
The White House said after Nasrallah’s address that “the US does not want to see the conflict expand into Lebanon”, underlining Washington’s fears that US troops in the Middle East face the risk of escalating attacks by militant groups armed and supported by Iran.
Hizbollah is one of the world’s most heavily armed non-state actors, with a complex arsenal of missiles capable of reaching anywhere in Israel. It withstood a 34-day conflict with Israel in 2006 and Nasrallah has since boasted that he has 100,000 fighters at his command, many of whom have been hardened by the group’s involvement in Syria’s civil war.
Nasrallah had been conspicuously silent since the war began. Lebanese officials familiar with Hizbollah’s thinking told the Financial Times that his group had come under intense diplomatic pressure to keep its response proportional to avoid a spillover conflict. They said Nasrallah “understood” that Lebanon was in no position to withstand a war, and was not interested in an aggressive escalation.
Lebanese officials, experts and people familiar with Hizbollah’s thinking said the border skirmishes had remained within the informal “red lines” defined in the aftermath of the 2006 war, designed to maintain mutual deterrence.
“Nasrallah knows Lebanon cannot afford another war,” said a senior Lebanese official, “but that’s being weighed against the Iran axis’s strategic interests”. Israeli officials have warned that any military response would take Lebanon “back to the stone age”.
Nasrallah used his speech to outline the steps his group had been taking since the conflict began, highlighting how Hizbollah “already entered the war” as soon as cross-border fire began on October 8. But he also stressed that the deadly Hamas attack on Israel was “100 per cent Palestinian”. While Iran publicly supports the “Lebanese and Palestinian resistance” against Israel, it “does not command them”, he said.
Analysts said the address seemed designed to incite the group’s followers without explicitly delineating an escalation. “Nasrallah did two things: he explained how his strategy has been effective, and also said that the group’s approach could change depending on what happens in Gaza and what Israel does in Lebanon,” said Rym Momtaz, a consultant research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Although he was careful not to proclaim all-out war, “he still left room for things to escalate should he need to”, Momtaz said.
Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, fell 2 per cent on Friday on relief that Nasrallah opted not to escalate hostilities.
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