خبرگزاری جمهوری عربی سوریه Syrian Arab News Agency
Beirut, SANA-Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the Palestinian cause continues to take a center stage on the regional and international level despite schemes attempting to marginalize it, attributing that to the steadfastness of Arab states, particularly Syria.
Hezbollah’s chief was speaking during a central festival in Beirut marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) International Day, an annual event held on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
Nasrallah, who appeared in person at the festival instead of addressing the audience via videotape as he used to do, said Syria has always been an “impregnable wall against the Zionist project.”
Nasrallah painted a grim picture of the Arab situation, deeming the current stage as “the most dangerous phase ever since Palestine was usurped.”
“What is happening in the region is that countries, armies, societies and peoples are being methodically destroyed,” he said.
“Our nation is at its worst,” Nasrallah said, adding that Palestine is the prime target which is presented with a major challenge which is how to survive the “times of strife.”
Addressing the people of Gaza, who have been facing an ongoing Israeli military aggression now in its 19th day, Nasrallah said only the “trinity of the battlefield, popular steadfastness, and political steadfastness will win the day.”
Nasrallah saw that Gaza has emerged a winner, citing the Israeli confusion regarding identifying the ultimate goal of the aggression.
The Israeli occupation army has not gone to Gaza to fight, but to kill, Nasrallah said, indicating that when the ground operation failed, the Israeli army switched to killing children and civilians in an attempt to break the resistance support base.
He stressed that the Palestinians in and outside Palestine have remained adherent to their land and cause despite all sufferings and massacres and did not surrender or get desperate, adding that the US, the west and the Zionists are dreaming of liquidating the Palestinian cause and consider that there is no Palestine or Palestinian people at all.
Nasrallah said the Zionists have sought to create problems and issues in all Arab countries to distract them from the central cause of Palestine, adding that at a time when Palestine and Gaza are being ravaged today, other Arab countries are busy securing gas, petroleum, food and salaries.
He said this Zionist long-term scheme was supported by the US and the western countries in addition to some Arab regimes whose thrones are dependent on their efforts to protect and defend Israel.
Slamming the Arab official stance, Nasrallah said that some Arab rulers are prodding Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, to press ahead with the aggression against Gaza in fear of admitting that the resistance did achieve a victory.
Nasralleh said there was an Israeli intelligence failure in estimating the strength of the resistance and its tactics, weaponry, missiles, stores, and manufacturing sites even though Gaza is a relatively small area that has been suffering a fierce blockade for years.
Hezbollah’s Secretary-General said that over the years, Syria, Iran and the Lebanese resistance have stopped at nothing in supporting the resistance in Palestine on all levels.
Commenting on the worsening situation in Iraq that has seen vast swaths of territory falling to extremists from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda splinter group, Nasrallah said Iraq has entered a “dark tunnel” where thousands of Christian families were driven out of their homes “in the name of Islam and in the name of the Caliphate.”
“It is our duty, as Muslims, to declare our condemnation of what Christians and Muslims are suffering in Iraq,” he added.
M. Ismael/ M. Nassr/ H. Sabbagh