Hezbollah has placed the full blame for Samir Kuntar death on Israel, and has vowed to take revenge “in the way, time, and date it chooses.”
By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News
Samir Kuntar (L) with Hezbollah leader Nasrallah. (Al Manar)
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah made a televised statement on Monday during which he accused Israeli of assassinating notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar in Syria on Saturday, stating that Hezbollah will respond to the assassination of “any member of the resistance in the way, time, and date it chooses.”
After sending Christmas greetings to the Christians in the region and the world, Nasrallah asserted that Israel was solely behind the operation as “Samir Kuntar was facing the threat of being assassinated since the first day of his liberation, because the Zionist enemy neither forgives nor asks for forgiveness.”
“Martyr Samir Kuntar was one of us, he was a leader in the resistance and was assassinated by Israel, therefore we ought to respond to his assassination in the time, place, and way we see is appropriate. Hezbollah will perform this right with the aid of Allah,” Nasrallah threatened.
The terror leader also assailed the US for its “attempt to disfigure Hezbollah, whether through forgery accusations against the resistance or through attempts to cutting out its voice from the world.”
Congress recently approved measures to further constrain Hezbollah’s international financial activities.
“Since 1995, the US had put us on the terrorism list, and for decades it had tried to impose this label on many countries, yet it failed to impose it on us,” he asserted, noting that “today the US is trying to give us another label, which is a “criminal organization’ that is involved in money laundering, drug dealing and human trafficking, and all these are certainly false claims that have nothing to do with reality.”
“This new US accusation is a political one aimed at disfiguring Hezbollah in the eyes of the people in the region and the world,” Nasrallah said, adding that the US was investing millions in their efforts against the terror organization. “In order to confront these US lies, we must assure that all these psychological and media measures will not affect us. On the financial level, we assure that we don’t have any bank accounts and we don’t transfer our money in that way.”
Addressing his followers, he said that “the US wants to accuse you, prosecute you, punish you, and kill you, and after all that you are not permitted to send your voice to the world in order to defend yourself. This is the US which brags about democracy and freedom yet prohibits media outlets which disagree with it to express their points of view.”
Proud to Be Enemies of America and Israel
“It is our pride to be the enemies of America and Israel… and we will not give up or surrender in this battle,” Nasrallah concluded.
Prior to Nasrallah’s address, thousands participated in Kuntar’s funeral in the Dahieh, Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut.
The head of Hezbollah Executive Council, Hashem Safieddine led the procession and asserted that “the Israeli enemy will pay the price of its crime.”
Hezbollah has already retaliated through a proxy organization which fired three rockets on northern Israel on Sunday, but the IDF maintains that Hezbollah will retaliate in a more severe manner, albeit not all blown confrontation because Hezbollah is deeply involved in the Syrian civil war and cannot afford to open a new front against Israel.
Ten days after Israel assassinated senior Hezbollah operatives last January, including Jihad Mughniyeh, commander of Hezbollah operations in the Golan Heights, Hezbollah fired five anti-tank missiles at IDF vehicles in the Har Dov region of northern Israel, killing Staff Sergeant Dor Chaim Nini and Captain Yochai Kalangel and wounding seven others.
Israel can expect a similar retaliatory attack, and the IDF is on high alert in expectance for such an eventuality.