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Nasrallah projected on a screen (file)
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| By Israel Insider staff February 15, 2008 |
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, too frightened for his life to appear at the funeral Thursday of terror commander Imad Mughniyah, threatened by videoconference to wipe out Israel for the killing of Tuesday, saying "his blood will lead to the elimination of Israel."
Mughniyah, the deputy secretary general of the Lebanon-based terror group, was killed in a bomb blast in a residential neighborhood in Damascus late Tuesday. Israel half-heartedly denied involvement, but Israeli leaders made no secret of their satisfaction at his disapperance.
Nasrallah vowed to strike Israeli targets abroad. "You have killed Hajj Imad outside the natural battlefield," Nasrallah said, addressing Israel and referring to Hezbollah's longtime contention it only fights Israel within Lebanon and along their common border.
"You have crossed the limit," Nasrallah said, in the furious eulogy at Mughniyah's funeral in south Beirut, addressed an adoring throng of tens of thousands of Hezbullah supporters. "With this murder, its timing, location and method -- Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open."
"Like all human beings we have a sacred right to defend ourselves," he said, speaking in a videotaped message broadcast over a giant screen at the ceremony in a Hezbollah stronghold. "We will do all that takes to defend our country and people."
Nasrallah went into hiding in 2006, fearing an Israeli assassination and has since made only three brief appearances in public since the war that summer with Israel.
"In every future war there won't be one Imad [Mughniyeh] or a few thousand fighters, but tens of thousand loyal fighters who are willing to die as martyrs," he warned.
The crowd answered back that they are his loyal soldiers.
Nasrallah said the death was a fulfillment of Mugniyah's childhood wishes, saying he had "waited and expected to meet with Allah. Since he was a boy, Hajj Imad acted for victory and requested to become a martyr and, at the end, he got what he wished for."
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israel is a "strong country" and statements uttered by terrorists will not change that. "We are not panicking," she said.
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