From the Liveblog of
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Nasrallah: US military will leave ‘humiliated’ – and take Israel with it
Hassan Nasrallah promises that if Shiite militias attack US military assets in the Middle East, the Americans will eventually leave the region “humiliated, defeated, and terrified” — and will take Israel with them.
“We won’t accept our region, its holy places, and natural resources to be handed over to the Zionists,” the Hezbollah chief says in a video speech from Beirut about the American killing of Qassem Soleimani.
He calls on Shiite forces, the “axis of resistance,” to attack the US military.
“If the resistance axis heads in this direction, the Americans will leave our region, humiliated, defeated, and terrified. The suicide martyrs who forced the US out of the region before remain,” he says, according to a live translation by David Daoud.
“If our region’s peoples head in this direction — when the coffins of US soldiers and officers – they arrived vertically, and will return horizontally — Trump and his administration will know they lost the region, and will lose the [2020] elections,” he promises.
And then he turns to Israel. “[The] response to the blood of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis must be the expulsion of all US forces from the region. When we accomplish this goal, the liberation of Palestine will become imminent. When US forces leave the region, these Zionists will pack their bags and leave, and [we] might not need a battle with Israel.
“Trump and the fools with him don’t realize what they’ve done, but time will show them,” he enthuses.
