Hezbollah Says Clashes with Israel Will End Only if Gaza War Stops

Sunday, 31 December 2023 4:31 PM

Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem

A senior official with of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah says cross-border clashes with Israel will end only if the regime ends its assaults on the Palestinians in Gaza.

Sheikh Naim Qassem, who serves as Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General, said on Sunday that the Israeli regime’s efforts to restore peace to the north of the occupied Palestinian territories, where it has been involved in clashes with Hezbollah for nearly three months, will be in vain unless attacks on civilians in Gaza stop completely.

The comments came after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the regime will do whatever it takes to restore calm to northern occupied Palestine where settlers have either been displaced or live in constant fear of missile attacks by Hezbollah.

“Israel will fail to return settlers to the north (of occupied Palestine)... it has to stop the Gaza war first so the war on the Lebanese front could also end,” said Qassem.

The cleric warned that Israel’s refusal to end the war in Gaza would lead to a further escalation in cross-border clashes with Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has launched fresh strikes on Israeli targets in the 1948-occupied territories.

“If (Israel) insists on warfare, the response from the resistance would be tougher,” he said.

Nearly 22,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian territory in early October.

The attacks started in response to an operation by the Gaza-based Hamas resistance group which killed 1,200 settlers and military forces in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Resistance groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen that find themselves allied with the Palestinians have been targeting Israeli and American targets in the region to force the two to end the aggression on Gaza.