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Nasrallah: empty threat? (AP file)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners August 4, 2006 |
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The Hezbollah leader, for the first time since fighting began 22 days ago, offered Thursday to stop rocket attacks on northern Israel in return for an end to airstrikes throughout Lebanon.
A defiant Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, however, vowed to launch rockets into Tel Aviv if Israeli jets were to strike at Beirut proper. Israeli warplanes have hit Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut suburbs repeatedly, most recently before dawn on Thursday.
"If you bomb our capital Beirut, we will bomb the capital of your usurping entity... We will bomb Tel Aviv," the black turbaned cleric said.
While threatening Tel Aviv for the first time, Nasrallah also offered his first gesture toward diminishing the conflict, which has taken more than 500 Lebanese lives and killed more than 50 Israelis.
Tel Aviv is Israel's commercial and financial hub, and more than one-quarter of Israel's population lives in the greater Tel Aviv area.
"Anytime you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city," he said in a taped video statement broadcast on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV and carried simultaneously on all other Lebanese and Arab satellite channels.
Speaking directly to Israelis, Nasrallah said, "The only choice before you is to stop your aggression and turn to negotiations to end this folly."
Parts of the speech were carried live on Israeli television channels, with Hebrew translation.
An Israeli military spokesman said that if Tel Aviv were bombed, Israel would deal a "painful" blow to Lebanese civilian infrastructure. Asked for clarification, an Israeli source said that the government would most likely "for starters, turn out the Lebanese lights." Several hours after Nasrallah's threat, Israeli jets bombed Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut, igniting several huge explosions.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mark Regev said Nasrallah was just looking for breathing room to regroup, while Israel was looking for a lasting agreement which would spell the end of the militia.
"Israel has been hitting Hezbollah hard over the past few days ... and we have no doubt the Hezbollah leadership would want nothing more than a cease-fire that would allow them to rearm, regroup and once again be in a position of strength," Regev said late Thursday.
Nasrallah said his forces were succeeding in inflicting "maximum casualties" on Israeli forces in the south of the country, and said his guerrillas would not back down from the brutal fighting around towns and villages across the rugged region.
"We naturally prefer that it is a military against military fight, on the ground, on the battlefield _ we are ready for it," he said.
Nasrallah acknowledged Israeli advances deeper into Lebanon, but said his guerrillas were not trying to hold ground.
"We are fighting a guerrilla war. Our policy is not to hang onto geography... It is beneficial for us to allow them to advance to the entrances to villages _ this is our goal. Our goal is to inflict maximum casualties and damage to the capabilities of the enemy, and we are succeeding," he said.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah's command and control structures and rocket forces remained intact.
Israel claims to have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters since the conflict began July 12. The guerrilla group has acknowledged losing only 46 men.
In his 45-minute address, Nasrallah said he held U.S. President George W. Bush responsible for the war in Lebanon and said the U.S. was blocking the path to a cease-fire.
"Lebanon will never be pro-American or pro-Israeli. Lebanon will not be part of the `new Middle East' that Bush and Condoleezza Rice want," he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly said there was no place in "a new Middle East" for Hezbollah or other Islamist groups bent on Israel's destruction.
Speaking about other Arab nations, Nasrallah said: "They should know that these homes that were demolished were not destroyed by an earthquake, but by Israel. The people who were forced to leave their homes were not displaced by a tsunami or earthquake. Israel displaced them."
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