After days of intense clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia, warned on Wednesday that “there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones” if an all-out war breaks out. He also threatened Cyprus if it allowed Israel to use its airports and bases in a full-scale conflict.
“The enemy knows very well that we have prepared for the most difficult days, and he knows what he will face,” Nasrallah said. “If war is imposed, the resistance will fight without constraints, rules or limits.”
President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus responded to the threat by saying his country was “absolutely not involved in any way,” according to comments posted on social media.
In his first public statements amid the recent outbreak of violence along the Lebanon-Israel border, Nasrallah said Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Iran, does not want a wider conflict, but stressed that the group is ready for war and has so far used only a fraction of its weapons. If necessary, Nasrallah said, Hezbollah could unleash them on “a series of targets” with precision strikes.
“The enemy knows that he must wait for us on land, in the air and at sea,” he said.
Since Hezbollah began exchanging fire with Israeli forces following the Hamas-led assault on Israel on October 7, more than 100 civilians in Israel and Lebanon have been killed and more than 150,000 have been displaced from their homes. But cross-border fighting in recent weeks has been among the fiercest yet, raising fears of another front in the war as Israel presses ahead with its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Western diplomats have tried to lower the temperature by meeting with Lebanese and Israeli officials to avert a full-blown war, but the Israeli military said on Tuesday it had approved operational plans for a potential offensive into Lebanon, without specifying when or if. plans would be used. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978, 1982 and 2006, each time to repel militants attacking across the border.