Israeli threat justifies resistance’s arms, Hezbollah hints

Hezbollah signifies Israel as the indirect reason for the armed status of the Lebanese resistance movement, reiterating its preparedness for any surprise Israeli offensive.

“…Weapons are the result of the resistance’s existence and the resistance is there because of the presence of the enemy,” Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem told Syria’s Addounia TV, the Lebanese portal Naharnet reported on Saturday.

Repeating the group’s earlier warnings about Israel’s hostility towards the resistance in Lebanon, he added that “Israel is a real danger; we can’t be reassured; we have to be in full preparedness (for war). We don’t know when surprises will come or what could happen regionally and internationally.”

Hezbollah, also an active member of the country’s coalition government, has fought off bloody Israeli incursions into Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. The second round of offensives, known as the 33-Day War, left some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, dead.

Late last month, an Israeli minister predicted a third attack amid reports that Tel Aviv had mobilized its troops.

The Hezbollah official, however, said it had not received any indications that the Israeli regime was prepared to launch another war on the movement or the region in the immediate future.

The remarks followed those by Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Friday in which he called on the international community to take measures to prevent a possible Israeli attack on his country.

Hariri warned of increasing Israeli violations of the Lebanese airspace during the past months, in an effort to raise awareness about continued Israeli threats against Lebanon.

Commenting on Hezbollah’s relations with Egypt amid Cairo’s continued contribution to the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, Qassem said, “The Egyptian regime has its own functioning method. We don’t approve such a method.”