Nasrallah: We're stronger than the IDF, will soon be victorious in Syria

"Israel is rebuilding itself today, in view of the defeat in 2006, including reexamining its doctrine of war, on the basis that its enemy is serious and capable."

AUGUST 15, 2018 00:31

Updated: AUGUST 15, 2018 12:37

Nasrallah: We're stronger than ever, August 15, 2018 (Reuters)

The leader of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said in a speech on Tuesday that his "resistance group is stronger than ever, even stronger than the Israeli army," The Jerusalem Post's sister publication Maariv reported Tuesday night.

"The resistance in Lebanon today, in its possession of weapons and equipment and capabilities and members and cadres and ability and expertise and experience, and also of faith and determination and courage and will, is stronger than at any time since its launch in the region," Nasrallah elaborated.

In his speech in southern Lebanon in honor of the 12th anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, he also argued that the 2006 armed conflict's goal was "implement the United State's plan to take control of the region, and, when the war failed, the US plan also failed."

He added that "Israel is rebuilding itself today, in view of the defeat in 2006, including reexamining its doctrine of war, on the basis that its enemy is serious and capable."

"Since 2007 the Israelis have threatened to go to war, but at the same time Hezbollah is strengthening immensely."

According to the Hizbollah leader, the civil war that has been taking place in Syria in the last seven years is "another July war," (the name in Lebanon for the Second Lebanon War) in which Israel's ultimate goal is to get rid of the Syrian regime and eliminate their claim to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

Israel, over the last few months, has repeatedly struck Hezbollah in Syria, where the group and its Iranian ally have played a key military role in fighting rebels alongside Assad's forces, backed by massive Russian air power.

Assad now holds most of Syria, although a swathe of the northwest remains in rebel hands and US-backed Kurdish forces control the quarter of the country east of the Euphrates river.

Nasrallah, however, in his Tuesday speech optimistically explained that his group would "very soon" celebrate victory in Syria.

Reuters contributed to this report.