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Nasrallah says Hezbollah had tunnels for 13 years
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said he was surprised how long it took Israel to locate tunnels built under the Israeli border and said one was built 13 years ago.
In his first interview since Israel launched an operation to detect and destroy the tunnel network Nasrallah told Al Mayadeen news that Hezbollah has been able to enter Israel “for years”. He expressed surprise about the length of time it took Israel to locate the tunnels, claiming that “one of the tunnels discovered go back 13 years”, meaning it would have predated UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the resolution that brought an end to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
But Nasrallah did not explicitly state that the tunnels belonged to Hezbollah, instead claiming a policy of “ambiguity” and a desire to deny Israel a pretext to attack.
Nasrallah addressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly in the interview warning him: “Be cautious not to exaggerate what you are doing in Syria. Miscalculation could drag the region into a war”.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah possesses “A sufficient number of precision missiles” and that the “resistance axis” of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, might change their reaction to Israeli airstrikes in Syria, including the bombardment of Tel Aviv. He added: “Part of our plan in the next war is to enter the Galilee”. He said that Hezbollah may be able to rebuild tunnels already destroyed and suggested there are tunnels that have not yet been discovered.
In a response, Netanyahu said that Nasrallah was embarrassed: “First, due to our tremendous success in Operation Northern Shield… second, Nasrallah is embarrassed by financial distress… thirdly, Nasrallah is embarrassed by our determination”.
Speculation had been mounting about Nasrallah’s health prior to the interview. A claim by a Saudi commentator that the interviewee had been a body double was dismissed by Israeli experts.
Times of Israel analyst Avi Issacharoff commented on the interview that: “In the next war, Hezbollah’s future and its very existence will probably be in question, along with the entire current state of Lebanon”. Issacharoff added that Hezbollah’s successes in Syria have “caused its secretary-general’s smugness to skyrocket”.