BEIRUT — “Israel has only two choices: continue or stop. In both cases, it has lost.” Speaking on Monday, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah loudly proclaimed the victory of Hamas, and with it, the “axis of resistance”, despite the massive destruction and grave human toll (over 35,000 Palestinians killed) after seven months of fighting in Gaza.

"Admittedly, the price is heavy,” he acknowledged in a speech delivered during a ceremony in tribute to Mustafa Badreddine, Hezbollah's former military chief in Syria and brother-in-law to the party's mysterious chief-of staff Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in 2016.

“However, victory is measured in the number of objectives achieved by each belligerent. Unlike Hamas, Israel has achieved none.” Nasrallah then listed the objectives achieved by the Palestinian movement since its Oct. 7 operation against Israel.

“At the start of the war, the Palestinian resistance said that one of its aims was to revive the Palestinian cause,” recalled the party head. “Today, thanks to the resilience of the fighters and the population, the Palestinian cause is number one in the world.” In particular, he asserted that, without "al-Aqsa Flood," Arab states would have “signed Palestine's death warrant,” in reference to the normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia that was imminent before the start of the war, but which is now more than ever conditional on Riyadh's recognition of a Palestinian state by Tel Aviv.

“The international community is now saying it: The Palestinian state is the only solution for the region,” added Nasrallah, at a time when, under the influence of Hamas, the Tehran axis seems to be opening up to the prospect of a two-state solution. “The Israelis don't want it, because they see the Palestinian state as an existential danger,” he accused.

Yahya Sinwar at the United Nations

On the Israeli side, Nasrallah asserted that Benjamin Netanyahu's government had not achieved any of the objectives of its military campaign. “They had announced that they wanted to annihilate Hamas, but it is far from defeated,” he insisted. “They wanted to recover the Israeli hostages, but the vast majority of them are still in the hands of resistance fighters,” he added. “Finally, they wanted Gaza to stop being a threat to them, but fire continues to rain down on the south, including Ashkelon (a large city to the north of the Palestinian enclave).”

Hezbollah's secretary general also took the view that Israel had not succeeded in defeating Hamas, even though the latter possessed only “modest military capabilities, even compared with the other factions of the resistance.”

He added: “Regarding undeclared objectives, they also failed to forcibly move Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt.” “Do you want to know who won the war? Look at the pictures of Israel's representative at the United Nations carrying a photo of Yahya Sinwar (Hamas leader in Gaza),” he quipped.

The Hezbollah leader then briefly mentioned southern Lebanon, where the war against Israel has also been raging since Oct. 8. “Our support front is continuing its mission and developing its operations”, he asserted. “For some weeks now, Hezbollah has been using drones, which appear to be more sophisticated than in the early months of the conflict, since they are less often intercepted by Israel and cause more casualties. I can't help but comment on Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's claim that half of Hezbollah's fighters are dead and the other half in hiding ... he's a fool,” he said. “Can't he see that our fighters are everywhere and launching attacks every day?”

A few weeks ago, Yoav Gallant claimed that Israel had killed half of Hezbollah's commanders. A statistic that experts consider unrealistic. “In any case, the link between the Lebanese front and the Gaza front remains inseparable. Even the Americans and the French have understood this,” he insisted. In recent months, emissaries from Washington and Paris have tried to obtain a ceasefire in southern Lebanon independently of Gaza, but Hezbollah has refused. Today, these two countries continue to work behind the scenes to prevent the war from spreading further into Lebanon.

“20 billion, 30 billion”

During the last part of his speech, the leader raised the issue of Syrian refugees and migrants. “This is the most important issue on the national scene right now,” he said. “This is the solution: talk to Syria and its government,” said the Hezbollah leader, who welcomed the “national consensus in Lebanon” on the issue.

Western powers and international organizations claim that Bashar al-Assad's regime does not want Syrian migrants and refugees to return, at least not without compensation. But, according to Nasrallah, it is the international community that is the main obstacle to the return of Syrians to their country.

“If the sanctions against Syria are not lifted, the refugees will not return,” he assured. Nasrallah claimed that the party tried to repatriate Syrians to Lebanon from the Qussair region, where the party is highly influential.

“We have guaranteed the inhabitants a safe return. But it was the associations in Lebanon that prevented their return, those funded by foreign powers,” he continued.

Nasrallah called on Lebanon to take the “courageous decision” of opening access to the sea to Syrians wishing to travel to Europe, in order to put pressure on the international community. “We never said that Syrians should be forced to get on a boat and leave. But allow them to leave legally, by passing a national law that says: 'The sea is open! Leave, you have the right!” the leader pleaded. “If we do that, it's no longer one billion that the EU will give us. It's 20 billion, 30 billion,” he declared.

This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.