From the Liveblog of
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Nasrallah: Hezbollah delayed attack to keep Israel on edge and to see outcome of Gaza truce talks
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says in a televised speech that the delay in the terror group’s retaliation for the July 30 assassination of its military commander Fuad Shukr was due to the Israeli and US military mobilization in the region.
He says — in a speech following Israel’s pre-emptive strike against the Iran-backed group as it prepared to launch a large-scale attack Sunday morning — that it was also intended as a punishment for Israel as the country was kept waiting on edge for almost a month.
Nasrallah adds that Hezbollah was waiting to see the outcome of ongoing truce talks between Hamas and Israel, and needed time to see if the “axis of Resistance” made up of Iran and its regional proxies would respond at the same time, or separately.
He stresses that the terror group has followed up on its pledge to respond to the Israeli “aggression” in the Dahia suburb of Beirut, the Hezbollah stronghold in which Shukr was assassinated.
Nasrallah also notes that the retaliatory attack was conducted on the Arbaeen, a Shiite commemoration of the martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali, the third Shia imam.
