Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called the series of explosions on electronic devices in Lebanon, widely believed to have been caused by Israel, a “declaration of war.”
In a much-anticipated televised speech on Thursday, Nasrallah said: “There is no doubt that we have suffered a huge security and humanitarian blow, unprecedented in the history of our resistance and perhaps even in the history of conflict with the enemy.”
“For two days, one minute every day, the enemy wanted to kill 5,000 people in two minutes, without caring,” Nasrallah said.
“Our answer, in the name of the martyrs and the wounded, is that the front in Lebanon will not stop until the aggression against Gaza stops, regardless of the sacrifices made…” he said.
The explosions that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday were “a large-scale terrorist operation, an act of genocide and a massacre, and amount to a declaration of war,” the leader of the Iran-backed militia said.
As Nasrallah spoke, Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over the capital Beirut, sounding like a bomb explosion and causing panic.
At least 37 people have been killed and some 3,000 wounded across the country in the series of explosions involving Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.