Hezbollah leader warns of war with Israel, fears being killed by IDF

“The possibility of war with Israel is very high this summer and I may no longer be with you,” Nasrallah reportedly told commanders.

By World Israel News Staff

Is Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warning of a war with Israel in the summer, and worried that he might be killed?

According to Elijah J. Magnier of the Kuwaiti Al Rai newspaper, Nasrallah told commanders: “The possibility of a war with Israel is very high this summer and I may no longer be with you.”

However, Hezbollah sources are cited by Lebanon 24 as denying the report, saying that all of it is a “fabric of the writer’s imagination.”

In the Al Rai report, the Hezbollah chief is quoted as warning that Israel could be ready to attack “with the objective of removing the threat on its borders once and for all.”

Nasrallah cautioned that “our people should know and…be prepared for the worse-case scenario.”

In December, Israel launched an operation to neutralize attack tunnels dug along the Lebanese-Israeli border. The U.N. backed up the Israeli position that the tunnels were a violation of an agreement reached ending the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel launched the 2006 military campaign after two of its soldiers were abducted and killed along the border.

According to Al Rai, Hezbollah believes that Israel would evacuate its communities located near the Lebanese border before the launching the next military operation in order to prevent the possibility of kidnappings.

Magnier reports that Nasrallah believes that the U.S., Britain, and Arab states could take part in the next conflict. The U.K. recently extended its classification of Hezbollah as a terror group to include the entire organization, as opposed to just its military wing. The official European Union position categorizes only the military branch as terrorist in nature.

Despite its terror activity, Hezbollah is a member of the Lebanese government.

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil recently met with a senior Israeli official in Moscow, according to a report in the Saudi newspaper Elaph. Bassil  is said to have called on Israel to stop threatening the Lebanese government over Hezbollah’s terror activity.

Israel has relayed the message over the years that while the Lebanese government is not the target of Israeli reprisals against terror attacks into the Jewish State, Jerusalem does ultimately view Beirut as responsible for attacks carried out from its territory.