The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Hezbollah leader reiterates ‘inevitable’ retaliation against Israel for Quntar’s death


Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. (AFP/Joseph Eid)

Hezbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah reiterated his pledge Sunday that his group will retaliate against Israel over the assassination of its senior operative Samir al-Quntar.

“The retaliation to Samir’s assassination will inevitably come,” Nasrallah vowed in a televised speech marking one week since Quntar’s death in an air raid in Syria that Hezbullah has blamed on Israel.

Nasrallah noted that the timing and place of retaliation is now in the hands of Hezbullah’s fighters and military commanders.

“We do not fear any repercussions or threats and we cannot tolerate that the blood of our jihadist fighters and brother be shed anywhere in this world,” Hezbullah’s leader stressed.

“The Israelis are hiding like rats along the border … The Israelis are worried and they should be worried — along the border and inside Israel. Their threats will not benefit them,” Nasrallah added.

He noted that Samir al-Quntar has become “an icon for the school of resistance.”

“After he was freed from prison, Samir could have lived a normal life among his family and friends, and he could have stayed in the axis of resistance without getting involved militarily, but he refused to do so,” Nasrallah said.

“It was one of the ideas I proposed to him and I told him that he could play an intellectual role,” he revealed.

Referring to Quntar’s role in the so-called Syrian Resistance for the Liberation of the Golan, Nasrallah added: “When the activities of the resistance started near the Golan, Israel grew very anxious, and it started retaliating in a disproportionate manner to any shelling or gunfire on the border, even if it did not cause casualties.”

Hezbullah played a key role in Quntar’s release after he had spent 30 years in Israeli jails, becoming known as the longest-serving Arab prisoner.

Shortly after his release, Quntar joined Hezbullah. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said he became “head of the Syrian Resistance for the Liberation of the Golan,” a group launched two years ago by Hezbullah in the Syrian region, most of which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

Nasrallah noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “sought to obtain international recognition of the annexation of the Golan under the excuse of the Syrian conflict.”

“Israel decided that eliminating such an important target is worth the adventure and the sacrifice … They thought that al-Quntar is not that important to Hezbullah,” he added.

On Monday, Nasrallah had pledged that Hezbullah would retaliate to the assassination “at the appropriate time and place and in the appropriate method.”

Source: Hezbollah leader reiterates ‘inevitable’ retaliation against Israel for Quntar’s death | Al Bawaba