BEIRUT (AP) — Celebratory gunshots rang out over Beirut as thousands packed into a square in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs on Friday to watch a televised speech by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the militant Lebanese Hezbollah group.
It was Nasrallah’s first public remarks since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, sparked by the Palestinian militants deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel.
The speech came a day after the most significant escalation in clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the border since the war started and on the same day as a visit to Israel by the top U.S. diplomat. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge protections for civilians in the fighting with Hamas, as Israeli troops tightened their encirclement of Gaza City.
In his lengthy remarks, Nasrallah praised the Hamas attack four weeks ago in which the militants attacked farming villages and military posts in southern Israel. More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel in the attack.
“This great, large-scale operation was purely the result of Palestinian planning and implementation,” Nasrallah said, suggesting his militia had no part in the attack. “The great secrecy made this operation greatly successful.”
Nasrallah’s speech had been widely anticipated throughout the region as a sign of whether the Israel-Hamas conflict would spiral into a regional war.
Since the beginning of the war, Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, had taken calculated steps to keep Israel’s military busy on its border with Lebanon, but not to the extent of igniting an all-out war.
