Hezbollah says it is ready for any Israeli land invasion in Lebanon

BEIRUT - Hezbollah fighters are primed to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon, the group’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said in his first public speech since Israeli air strikes killed its veteran chief Hassan Nasrallah last week.

Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.

“We will face any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement,” he said in an address from an undisclosed location on Sept 30.

He was speaking as Israeli air strikes on targets in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon continued, extending a two-week wave of attacks that has eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed about 1,000 Lebanese and forced one million to flee their homes, according to the Lebanese government.

Nasrallah’s killing, along with the series of strikes against the organisation’s communications devices and assassination of other senior commanders, constitutes the biggest blow to the organisation since Iran created it in 1982 to fight Israel.

He had built it up into Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force, with wide sway across the Middle East.

Now Hezbollah faces the challenge of replacing a charismatic, towering leader who was a hero to millions of supporters because he stood up to Israel even though the West branded him a terrorist mastermind.

“We will choose a secretary-general for the party at the earliest opportunity... and we will fill the leadership and positions on a permanent basis,” Qassem said.

He said Hezbollah’s fighters had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150km into Israeli territory and were ready to face any possible Israeli ground incursion.

“What we are doing is the bare minimum... We know that the battle may be long,” he said. “We will win as we won in the liberation of 2006 in the face of the Israeli enemy,” he added, referring to the last big conflict between the two foes.

Israel, which has also assassinated leaders of Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza war, says it will do whatever it takes to return its citizens to evacuated communities on its northern border safely.

It has not ruled out a ground invasion and its troops have been training for one.

“The elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the final one. In order to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities, we will employ all of our capabilities, and this includes you,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops deployed to the country’s northern border.

Hours before Hezbollah’s Qassem spoke, Hamas said an Israeli air strike killed its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, along with his wife, son and daughter in the southern city of Tyre on Sept 30.

Another faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said three of its leaders died in a strike in Beirut’s Kola district – the first such hit inside the city limits.

The wave of Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon is part of a conflict also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, Iraq and within Israel itself. The escalation has raised fears that the US and Iran will be sucked into the conflict.

The latest actions indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran’s most powerful ally in its “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US influence in the region.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Tehran would not let any of Israel’s “criminal acts” go unanswered. He was referring to the killing of Nasrallah and an Iranian Guard deputy commander, Brigadier-General Abbas Nilforoushan, who died in the same strikes on Sept 27.

Russia said Nasrallah’s death had led to a serious destabilisation in the broader region.

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the United Kingdom called for a ceasefire, but added that its support for Israel’s right to self-defence was “ironclad”.

Close ally the US has shown unwavering support for Israel despite concerns over heavy civilian casualties.

While Arab states have condemned Israel’s actions, none has taken concrete steps to pressure it to rein in its warplanes, angering Beirut residents like Mr Abou Imad.

“You are watching as they (Israel) take over all the Arab countries and take us all. This indifference is shameful, for the Lebanese and Palestinian people,” he said.

In Lebanon, the authorities said at least 105 people were killed by Israeli air strikes on Sept 29.

Israeli drones hovered over Beirut for much of Sept 29, with the loud blasts of new air strikes echoing around the Lebanese capital. Displaced families spent the night on benches at Zaitunay Bay, a string of restaurants and cafes on Beirut’s waterfront. 

Many of Israel’s attacks have been carried out in the south of Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah has most of its operations, or Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The Sept 30 attack in the Kola district appeared to be the first strike within Beirut’s city limits.

Syrians living in southern Lebanon who fled Israeli bombardment have been sleeping under a bridge in the neighbourhood for days, residents of the area said. 

The US has urged a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Lebanon, but has also authorised its military to reinforce itself in the region. US President Joe Biden, asked if an all-out war in the Middle East could be avoided, said: “It has to be.”

He said he will be talking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. REUTERS