UPDATED 11:51 A.M.
BEIRUT (Reuters) -The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah warned the United States on Friday that preventing a regional conflict depended on stopping the Israeli attack on Gaza, and said there was a possibility of fighting on the Lebanese front turning into a full-fledged war.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in his first speech since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7, also threatened Israel’s main ally the United States, hinting his Iran-backed group was ready to confront U.S. warships in the Mediterranean.
“You, the Americans, can stop the aggression against Gaza because it is your aggression. Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and I am talking to the Americans, must quickly halt the aggression on Gaza,” Nasrallah said.
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces at the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since Oct. 8, with more than 55 of its fighters killed. But clashes have been largely contained to the border, and Hezbollah has so far used a fraction of the arsenal with which Nasrallah has long threatened Israel.
The group, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, is the spearhead of a Tehran-backed alliance hostile to Israel and the United States.
Other Iran-aligned groups have entered the fray since Oct. 7, with Tehran-backed Shi’ite groups firing on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and Yemen’s Houthis launching drones at Israel.
Nasrallah, widely seen as an influential figure in the alliance, saluted the Iraqi and Yemeni efforts.
“You, the Americans, know very well that if war breaks out in the region, your fleets will be of no use,” he said. “The one who will pay the price will be … your interests, your soldiers and your fleets,” he said.
The White House said Hezbollah must not exploit the Hamas-Israel conflict, and the United States did not want to see the conflict expand into Lebanon.
The Pentagon has deployed two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean since the war erupted, saying these are meant as a deterrent to ensure conflict does not expand.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah was not afraid of the warships.
“We have prepared well for your fleets, with which you are threatening us,” said Nasrallah, whose group’s arsenal includes anti-ship missiles.
He recalled attacks on U.S. interests in Lebanon in the early 1980s – a reference to 1983 suicide bombings that destroyed the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 servicemen, and a suicide attack on the U.S. embassy. The United States holds Hezbollah responsible for the attacks.
Those “who defeated you in Lebanon … are still alive”, he said.
‘THIS WON’T BE ALL’
Israel laid devastating siege to Hamas-ruled Gaza following the Oct. 7 cross-border assault by the Islamist group’s militants that Israel says killed around 1,400 people, with about 240 spirited as hostages back to the Palestinian enclave.
Gaza health authorities say at least 9,227 people – many of them women and children – have been killed since Israel started its blitz on the small coastal enclave of 2.3 million people.
Nasrallah celebrated the Hamas attack, saying it had ushered in a “new historic phase”.
The attack had come as a surprise to him and Hamas’ other allies, and the decision was “100%” Palestinian, he said.
The possibility of the Lebanon front sliding into a “full-fledged war” was real, he said. “It can happen, and the enemy must take every account of it,” Nasrallah said.
Israel has said it has no interest in a conflict on its northern frontier.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Hezbollah against opening a second war front with Israel, saying that doing so would bring Israeli counter-strikes of “unimaginable” magnitude that would wreak devastation upon Lebanon.
“In regard to the north, I tell our enemies once again, do not test us. You will pay dearly for any such mistake,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement on Friday.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah had been escalating day by day, forcing Israel to keep forces near its northern frontier instead of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank to the southwest.
“What is happening on the border may seem modest, but if we look at what is happening on the border objectively, we will find it… very important,” he said.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam, Tom Perry and Riham al Koussa in Beirut and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; writing by Nadine Awadalla and Tom Perry; editing by Michael Georgy, Angus MacSwan, Tomasz Janowski, Mark Heinrich and Nick Macfie)
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GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah warned the United States on Friday that if Israel did not stop its assault on Gaza then fighting on the Lebanese front could turn into a wider war.
A strong military force backed by Iran, Hezbollah has been engaging Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border in the deadliest escalation since it fought a war with Israel in 2006.
“We are ready for all possibilities,” Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech, speaking for the first time since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.
He blamed the United States for the war in Gaza and the high civilian death toll and said a de-escalation in the besieged enclave was vital to prevent regional war.
“You, the Americans, can stop the aggression against Gaza because it is your aggression. Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and I am talking to the Americans, must quickly halt the aggression on Gaza,” Nasrallah said.
He added Hezbollah did not fear the U.S. naval firepower Washington has assembled in the region since the crisis erupted.
Nasrallah said that further escalation along the Lebanese border between Israel and his group – a Hamas ally – was contingent on what happened in the Gaza Strip, under assault by Israeli forces since a deadly Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Nasrallah’s remarks coincided with a visit to Israel by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said the U.S. had been clear that it is determined there should not be a second or third front in the conflict.
Blinken was speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv following meetings with Israeli leaders, adding that Washington is committed to deterring aggression from any party.
He also appealed to Israel to take steps to protect civilians in Gaza as its forces kept up their bombardment of the Palestinian enclave and the death toll among residents soared.
The Israeli military said its troops were fighting Hamas militants in close-quarter combat in the ruined streets after encircling Gaza City in their bid to wipe out the Islamist group that controls the small, densely populated territory.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Dan Williams, Emily Rose, Maytaal Angel in Jerusalem, Clauda Tanios in Dubai, Patricia Zengerle, Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington; additional reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; writing by Michael Perry and Angus MacSwan; editing by Miral Fahmy, Andrew Cawthorne and Mark Heinrich)
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