WarSclerotic

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday warned Israel over its continued attacks in Syria, saying a miscalculation could drag the region into a war.

Nasrallah made the comment during a wide-ranging interview that lasted more than three hours with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV station.

Video: Reuters

Iran, Syria and Hezbollah could “at any moment” decide to deal differently with Israel’s actions in Syria, Nasrallah said, and hinted that Tel Aviv might be a target.

Addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said: “Be cautious. Don’t continue what you are doing in Syria. Don’t miscalculate and don’t drag the region into a war or a major confrontation.”

Nasrallah said circumstances in the region have changed as Iran and its allies, including his terrorist organization, expand their influence in the region. This means any war can be on more than one front, Nasrallah warned.

Israel has recently increased its attacks on Iranian military targets in Syria, confirming such targeting in a shift from its longstanding policy of playing down or not commenting on its military activities in the war-torn country.

Israel considers Iran to be its greatest enemy, and it has repeatedly warned that it will not allow Iranian troops – who have been fighting alongside Syrian government forces – to maintain a permanent presence in post-war Syria.

In the latest violence, the IDF claimed responsibility for a series of airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria last Monday, saying it was responding to an Iranian missile attack a day earlier. The Iranian launch followed a rare Israeli daylight air raid near Damascus International Airport.

Nasrallah said Netanyahu is the person “most disappointed” by U.S. plans to withdraw from Syria and cited the withdrawal as another “failure.”

Nasrallah’s appearance followed news reports in Israel and elsewhere that his health was failing. He dismissed the reports as “lies.”

“I don’t suffer from any health problems,” said Nasrallah, who seemed relaxed and at times joked with his interviewer and sipped on tea and water. “I have been active, and I also lost weight,” he said with a giggle.

Another report said Nasrallah was under house arrest, guarded by Iranian forces, for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars from the terrorist organization’s coffers.

The Hezbollah leader has customarily addressed his supporters and made TV appearances about pressing issues in the region and Lebanon, but the 59-year-old had not appeared since November.

Nasrallah described his silence as intentional, saying Hezbollah chose not to address Israel’s attacks so as not to feed what he called an Israeli “publicity stunt.”

In December, the IDF launched “Operation Northern Shield” to detect and destroy what it Hezbollah’s vast network of attack tunnels built for its fighters to sneak across the border into Israel, capture territory and stage attacks. Israel discovered at least six tunnels, which it said were Hezbollah’s prime strategic investment for its next potential war.

In the first comments about the tunnel operation, Nasrallah played down the discoveries, saying Hezbollah would need more than a few tunnels if it ever decided to invade Israel.

He also said Hezbollah has “for years” been able to enter Israel and that at least one of the tunnels was built more than a decade ago.

“This is a 13-year-old [Israeli] intelligence failure,” Nasrallah said.

“Part of our plan in the next war is to enter [the] Galilee [region in northern Israel], a part of our plan we are capable of, God willing. The important thing is that we have this capability and we have had it for years,” Nasrallah said.

He added that all of Israel would be the battlefield and reiterated that the group now had precision rockets that could strike deep into Israel.

He said Israel was still looking for more tunnels, despite having said its operation to find them was over. He said Israel had only discovered some tunnels, adding “it is not known” if more exist.

Last week, U.N. Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov said that at least two of the tunnels found by Israel crossed the Blue Line, the U.N.-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon, “and thereby constituted violations.”

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war, said both sides must stick to their side of the Blue Line and that Hezbollah must leave the area near the frontier.