Hezbollah's leader made his first public comments on the Israel-Hamas war Friday—but while Hassan Nasrallah stressed that the Hamas-allied group is keeping all its options open, he stopped short of declaring all-out war. "We are ready for all possibilities," the leader of the Lebanese militant group said, per Reuters, warning that the group is ready to escalate fighting if Israel continues its Gaza offensive. He praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel but suggested Hezbollah was not involved, saying, "This great, large-scale operation was purely the result of Palestinian planning and implementation," per the Guardian.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah "already entered the battle" on Oct. 8, the start of weeks of clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border. He blamed the US for the war in Gaza said American warships deployed in the Mediterranean to deter attacks from Iran and Hezbollah "will not scare us," the AP reports. The Wall Street Journal describes Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, as a "more powerful military force than Hamas," with thousands of fighters with battlefield experience from Syria and an arsenal of an estimated 130,000 rockets and missiles.
The border clashes have been limited in scale, with Nasrallah pursuing a strategy of keeping some Israeli troops away from Gaza but not opening a second front in the war, a move that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said would have "unimaginable" consequences for Hezbollah, the Guardian reports. The speech from Nasrallah, who was speaking from an undisclosed location, was broadcast in public screenings around Lebanon, the BBC reports. Hezbollah promoted the speech days in advance as an important event and some had expected Nasrallah to announce a wider war. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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