Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah delivers a speech on July 13, 2022. Screenshot/al-Manar
BEIRUT — Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised Wednesday night on the anniversary of the 2006 July War with Israel that his party is “militarily and financially capable of preventing [Israel] from extracting [gas] from the disputed Karish field and all [Israel’s] measures will not be capable of protecting its floating platform.”
Here’s what we know:
• With US President Joe Biden currently visiting Israel in his first official trip to the Middle East as president, Nasrallah said, “The main achievement of the resistance in 2006 is aborting the American project in the region."
• Addressing Biden’s visit to the region, Nasrallah said that the visit is intended to ensure that the US provides Europe with an alternative for Russian oil and gas, so they don't keep buying from Russia, by convincing the “Gulf states to provide Europe with its oil and gas needs.”
• “If Europe keeps buying from Russia, Russia’s economy would thrive, and the US sanctions would be useless,” he added.
• Biden's visit comes at a time when tensions are rising due to the maritime border dispute between Lebanon and Israel and after Israel shot down three reconnaissance drones sent by Hezbollah to the disputed Karish gas field to warn Israel away from drilling before the border demarcation issue is decided. Nasrallah noted that Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz had threatened that the Israeli army would march to “Saida, Sour, and Beirut,” but added that the “Israelis seemed to have forgotten that in 2006, the Israelis stood for 33 days on the doors of our villages and were not able to invade Lebanon.”
• On the prospects for Lebanon’s Egyptian gas deal and the Jordanian electricity deal, both of which would involve sending the energy supplies by way of Syria, Nasrallah stated “Lebanon is waiting for the exemption from the US [to Caesar Act sanctions] to be allowed to have its basic rights from neighboring countries who are trying to help Lebanon,” he said continuing that if the US is not standing beside Lebanon to help it get gas and electricity they can’t count “on the US to help secure the country’s share of gas from the disputed Karish field.”