Hezbollah Threatens to Hit Israel’s Nuclear Facility If Confrontations Escalate

BEIRUT (Sputnik) — Lebanese Hezbollah movement threatened Thursday to strike the Dimona nuclear facility located in the south of Israel in case of further confrontations with the country.

“We can make the Dimona facility, already threatening the region, a threat to Israel’s existence,” Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, said as quoted by Al-Manar TV channel.

He also urged Israel to empty the ammonia tank in Haifa, which has been at the center of the recent bilateral confrontations, and to shut down the nuclear reactor in Dimona. Nasrallah characterized unloading of the ammonia reservoir as “a sign that the enemy [Israel] is aware of Lebanon’s possibilities for resistance”.

The leader of the Lebanese Shiites noted that Hezbollah fighters are combat-ready to disrupt Israel’s attack against Lebanon.

The secretary general of Hezbollah also pointed out that Israel has been constructing defensive barriers around its settlements since 1948, when it started building a concrete wall on the Lebanese border.

On Sunday the Haifa Court for Local Affairs ruled that an ammonia tank menacing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the area must be emptied within 10 days. The ruling came after Hezbollah issued a statement threatening to strike Haifa.

The Dimona nuclear plant in the Negev desert has been seen as threatening the lives of people in Israel and neighboring Jordan since 2008.

Israel was in a month-long war with the Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group Hezbollah in 2006, and there has been no major direct confrontation between the parties since.