Hezbollah chief warns Israel, marking end of religious holiday

GlobalPost

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel Sunday that any war with Lebanon would see thousands of rockets fired on Israeli cities.

Nasrallah's televised warning comes just days after a tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the end of Ashura, a religious holiday for Shia Muslims.

“If the confrontation in the Gaza Strip given its blockade included missiles reaching 40 to 70 kilometers [into Israel], then the radius of a battle with us will reach occupied Palestine [Israel] from the Lebanese border to the Jordanian border and the Red Sea,” Nasrallah said, according to the Daily Star.

“From Kiryat Shmona to Eilat,” he continued, in reference to Israel's most northern and southern cities.

Nasrallah has previously warned that it now has an arsenal of weapons that could reach Israel's largest city Tel Aviv.

He told tens of thousands of supports gathered in central Beirut that: "Israel, which was shaken by a handful of Fajr-5 rockets during eight days - how would it cope with thousands of rockets which would fall on Tel Aviv and other (cities)... if it attacked Lebanon?" reported Reuters.

Nasrallah also chided Arab leaders who offered their vocal support for Gaza but not money and arms.

He also said that the United States was a servant of Israel and that both countries were symbols of tyranny.

The Shia militant group's last confrontation with Israel was in 2006.

The 34-day conflict took the lives of 44 Israeli civilians and approximately 1200 Lebanese.

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