Hezbollah chief warns Gaza battle could spiral into regional conflict

TEL AVIV/ GAZA/ WASHINGTON/ BEIRUT/GENEVA: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Friday that war between Israel and Hamas could turn into a regional conflict if attacks on Gaza continue, placing responsibility firmly on the United States. In his first speech since the war broke out between Hamas militants and Israel, the head of the powerful Iran-backed movement warned that “all options” were open for an expansion of the conflict to Lebanon.

“America is entirely responsible for the ongoing war on Gaza and its people, and Israel is simply a tool of execution,” Nasrallah said in a televised broadcast, calling the conflict “decisive”.

“Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and this is addressed to the Americans, must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza,” he said.

Thousands of supporters gathered to hear the fiery speech at an event in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Others gathered elsewhere in Lebanon and the region, including Tehran and Baghdad. US President Joe Biden has sent two aircraft carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean. But a defiant Nasrallah told the United States that “your fleet in the Mediterranean does not scare us... we are ready to face the fleet you threaten us with.”

“You Americans know well that if there is war in the region, your fleet will be of no use, nor will air combat help. Your interests and your soldiers and your fleet will be the first to pay the price,” he added.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Hezbollah “should not try to take advantage of the ongoing conflict”.

“This has the potential of becoming a bloodier war between Israel and Lebanon than 2006,” she said. “The United States does not want to see this conflict expand into Lebanon.”

Nasrallah also warned Israel against attacking Lebanon, saying that “all options are open on our Lebanese front”.

The current situation at the Lebanon-Israel border is linked “to the course and development of events in Gaza”, Nasrallah said, claiming Hezbollah’s actions had tied up “a large section” of the Israeli army that might otherwise have been fighting in the Palestinian territory. He warned that the chance of open conflict was “realistic”.

“We say to the enemy that might think of attacking Lebanon or carrying out a pre-emptive operation, that this would be the greatest foolishness of its existence,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah it would “pay an unimaginable price” for any misstep.

The Hamas government in Gaza said an Israeli strike hit a convoy of ambulances transporting the wounded from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south killing multiple people near the territory’s largest hospital. The health ministry announced “several citizens were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike at the entrance to Al-Shifa hospital” in Gaza City. An AFP journalist at the scene saw multiple bodies beside a damaged ambulance.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “utterly shocked” by a deadly Israeli strike on a convoy of ambulances near Gaza’s largest hospital. An AFP journalist saw multiple bodies beside a damaged ambulance outside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, which is overcrowded with civilians seeking shelter from Israeli bombing as well as those wounded.

Earlier, top US diplomat Antony Blinken met Israeli leaders to call for more to be done to protect Palestinian civilians during the war to destroy Hamas. After meeting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken said he had discussed the idea of “humanitarian pauses” to secure the release of hostages and to allow aid to be distributed to Gaza’s beleaguered population.

Blinken said the United States stood “in solidarity” with Israel but said that in meetings with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, he had emphasized that “it matters” how Israel conducts its campaign to defeat Hamas. “We believe that each of these efforts would be facilitated by humanitarian pauses, by arrangements on the ground that increase security for civilians and permit the more effective and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance,” Blinken told journalists. Netanyahu, however, warned that there could be no “temporary truce” in Gaza unless Hamas releases the estimated 241 Israeli and foreign hostages.

After meeting with President Isaac Herzog of Israel, Blinken said: “It is very important that, when it comes to the protection of civilians who are caught in the crossfire of Hamas’s making, that everything be done to protect them and to bring assistance to those who so desperately need it.”

And he reiterated Washington’s long-standing support for the eventual recognition of a Palestinian state: “Two states for two peoples. Again, that is the only way to ensure lasting security for a Jewish and democratic Israel.”

Israeli forces have urged Gazans to head south from Gaza City towards the southern end of the territory to escape the worst of the fighting, but the Hamas-run health ministry said that 14 fleeing Palestinians, including women and children, had been killed making this journey. Witnesses said the strike hit Gaza’s coastal road, which the Israeli military has previously told civilians to take to travel south. The United Nations Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions. “

In Geneva, the United Nations launched an emergency aid appeal seeking $1.2 billion to help some 2.7 million people facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 9,227 people have died in Israeli bombardments, mostly women and children.

New Israeli strikes rocked the Gaza Strip on Friday morning, an AFP correspondent said, and the Gaza health ministry reported at least 15 deaths in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood and seven in Jabalia refugee camp. Israeli Army Radio said a rocket hit a kindergarten in Sderot, which is located near northern Gaza and has been largely evacuated amid the war.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar expressed concern that Israel’s response had gone beyond tackling Hamas in self-defence and now “resembles something more approaching revenge” and that’s not where we should be”.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) is no longer able to provide shelter and protection to civilians under the UN flag, according to its Gaza director. Speaking in a video address from the besieged coastal territory, Thomas White said 38 people had died in UN facilities. “The reality is we’ve lost contact with many of the shelters in the north,” White told member states gathered to listen to a report on the humanitarian situation.

Honduras became the latest Latin American country to recall ambassador from Israel. The Honduran foreign ministry said the ambassador was being recalled because of what it described as Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.