Hezbollah leader warns Israel of a war “without red lines” and threatens Cyprus

In a televised speech at the official’s memorial ceremony on Wednesday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said: “Israel knows full well that in the event of a war between neighboring states, no place will be safe from our missiles and drones,” said comments from the Hezbollah-affiliated news channel al-Manar TV.

He added that Hezbollah had now “obtained new weapons” but gave no further details. The group frequently uses Burkan rockets, anti-tank missiles and heavy-warhead missiles, which are modeled on Iran’s Ababil drones, according to Seth Frantzman, an associate fellow at the US-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Nasrallah said the number of Hezbollah fighters had now exceeded “well over 100,000,” after initially saying that threshold would be reached in 2021, according to the Associated Press. The secretive nature of the group – which has significant political, military and social influence in Lebanon – makes the numbers difficult to verify. Lebanon’s official armed forces are estimated at around 80,000 men, according to data portal IndexMundi.

The Hezbollah leader also threatened war against the Mediterranean island of Cyprus if the EU member allowed Israel to conduct military operations from its territory. Nasrallah accused Israel of conducting “maneuvers in preparation for the Lebanon war” in Cyprus, without revealing his sources.

“I say that the Cypriot government must be careful because opening airports to the enemy to attack Lebanon means that Cyprus is part of the war and we will deal with it as part of the war,” al-Manar quoted Nasrallah as saying, according to a Google translation.

Although Cyprus has denied the allegations, it has strengthened defence cooperation and will only take part in joint military exercises with Israel in May 2023.

In response to Nasrallah, Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides stressed on Wednesday that his country was not involved in the conflict and was rather part of the solution, according to the Cypriot news agency.

CNBC has reached out to the Cypriot Foreign Ministry for comment on whether Cypriot sites are being used for Israeli military activities.

Nasrallah’s speech adds fuel to the increasingly heated rhetoric of the past week, while the increase in missile trade between Israel and Lebanon raises fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Hezbollah released a video purportedly taken by its surveillance drones showing military installations in the Israeli port city of Haifa. In response, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon have been approved and confirmed and decisions have been made on further increasing the readiness of troops on the ground,” without explaining the scope of the initiative or whether it would involve deploying troops across the border.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz also warned that his country is now “very close to the moment of deciding to change the rules towards Hezbollah and Lebanon”.

US efforts to contain the conflict and advance its peace plan for the Gaza enclave have so far been in vain, with senior White House envoy Amos Hochstein meeting with politicians in Israel and Lebanon earlier this week.