Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday warned the powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian Hamas, that Beirut could suffer the same fate as Gaza if the pro-Iranian group dragged Lebanon into war.
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said earlier that his group had begun using new weapons in its attacks against Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attacks on Israeli soil on October 7.
Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas and has since then relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamist movement.
“What we can do in Gaza, we can do in Beirut,” Mr. Gallant said during a visit to northern Israel on the border with Lebanon.
“If (Hezbollah, editor’s note) commits such mistakes here, the citizens of Lebanon will be the first to pay the price,” he warned, without saying which “mistakes” he was referring to.
AFP
“Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a war that could happen and is making mistakes,” Mr. Gallant said, according to comments from his ministry.
He said he hoped Hezbollah “will act correctly” and that its leader Hassan Nasrallah “will not continue to provoke us because (we) will not accept this aggression.”
Since the deadly war began, there have been daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel in the border area between the two countries.