Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has warned Tel Aviv against making any “miscalculations” against Lebanon, and informed Israel that his group is in regular contact with the PIJ militia.
“We in Hezbollah are following up on what’s happening hour by hour and we’re in constant contact with our dear brothers in the leadership of the Islamic Jihad movement. We’re also in contact with our brothers in the leadership of the Hamas movement and the rest of the Palestinian factions,” Nasrallah said in a sermon Saturday night.
“They threaten Palestine, while their main goal is Lebanon…[Israel] is making wrong calculations if it thinks it can intimidate or scare us. Do not make a miscalculation with Lebanon. Anything you do and anything you say cannot in any way impact our will, morale and decisions,” he warned.
Slamming Israel over what he characterized as a “clear aggression and crime” against Gazans, the Shia leader also criticized “many Arab countries and regimes” which have remained “silent” amid the escalation, saying “silence in the face of this act of terror will pave the way for more acts of terror.”
Nasrallah expressed confidence that “the resistance will have the upper hand in this battle,” and said it was “clear” that Hezbollah’s Israeli adversary “always miscalculates.”
Nasrallah warned that “the resistance is stronger than ever,” and that PIJ rocket strikes in response to the Israeli aerial campaign demonstrates that they “will not remain silent in the face of enemy aggression.”
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid announced Sunday evening that the goals of Operation Breaking Down against the PIJ had been reached, and that the operation was in its “final stage.”
The operation was launched Friday and involved missile and air strikes into Gaza targeting PIJ leaders, with the military warning that it could last up to a week.
Moscow condemned the escalation on Saturday, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressing concern about the violence and calling on all parties to immediately return to the ceasefire regime and avoid the further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Hezbollah and the Palestinian militants operating in Gaza have a number of ideological and sectarian differences between them, first and foremost religion (Hamas and PIJ are Sunni, Hezbollah are Shia). In the foreign-backed war in Syria, Hamas sided with jihadists seeking to overthrow the Assad government, while Hezbollah actively supported Damascus and sent its commandos to the country to help keep Syria from collapsing into a failed state.
US and Israeli intelligence consider Hezbollah to be significantly stronger militarily than Hamas and the PIJ, with the IDF estimating that the Lebanese militia has up to 100,000 rockets and missiles of various ranges and calibers capable of striking Israel.
The Gaza-based militias’ rocket and missile strength is considered to be significantly lower, owing to the economic conditions in the Palestinian enclave, including limited resources, as well as Israeli intelligence operations aimed at uncovering and marking rocket manufacturing workshops for destruction. During last year’s flare up of fighting between Hamas and the IDF, the militants fired over 4,000 rockets into southern Israel, with even this enough to partially overwhelm Iron Dome defenses.
Despite the differences between them, the Palestinian and Lebanese political and militia groups each accept the centrality of the concept of resistance against Israel, and have enjoyed a gradual reconciliation in relations from the mid-to-late 2010s.