Hezbollah leader threatens Cyprus as tensions with Israel rise

The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah threatened on Wednesday (19) to attack the European island of Cyprus if a war breaks out between Israel and Lebanon.

“Cyprus will also be part of this war” if it opens its airports and bases to Israeli forces, Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech that came just a day after Israel warned the powerful Iran-backed militant group that the prospect of “total war ” was “getting very close.”

The Hezbollah leader’s comments mark the first time he has threatened Cyprus, a member of the European Union that lies in the Mediterranean Sea, about 200 kilometers from Lebanon, and which has carried out joint military exercises with Israel since 2014.

Nasrallah’s threat came as part of a fierce response to Israel’s warning that saw him boast of his group’s growing capabilities and threaten to “shake the pillars” of Israel if a war “were imposed on Lebanon.”

Tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have been rising since the October 7 Hamas attacks and the Israel Defense Forces’ subsequent military campaign in Gaza. In recent weeks, the intensity of cross-border attacks between the two has increased, raising concerns about the prospect of all-out war.

Those prospects worsened on Tuesday, when Hezbollah aired a nine-minute video shot by a drone showing civilian and military sites in and around one of Israel’s largest cities, Haifa.

The video prompted Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to warn of an “all-out war” in which “Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon severely beaten.”

On Wednesday (19), Nassrallah celebrated the video as proof of his growing ability to gather information.

“The enemy knows that no place in the entire (State) is safe from our missiles and this will not be arbitrary. Everything will be deliberately targeted,” Nasrallah said in his speech.

“We have long hours of footage of Haifa, the surrounding areas of Haifa, and what comes after Haifa, and after Haifa,” Nasrallah said, in an apparent reference to a Hezbollah slogan from the 2006 war with Israel, when rockets from group reached Haifa for the first time.

In response to Nasrallah’s threat, Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides said the island was “in no way involved in the war conflicts.”

“The Republic of Cyprus is not part of the problem. The Republic of Cyprus is part of the solution,” said Christodoulides. “And our role in this, as demonstrated, for example, through the humanitarian corridor, is recognized not only by the Arab world, but by the international community as a whole.”

What the drone footage shows

Parts of the Hezbollah footage, shot during the day, claimed to show Krayot, a cluster of “highly populated” residential towns north of the Israeli city of Haifa and 28 km south of the Lebanese border, along with shopping malls and luxury stores.

Other parties claimed to show a military complex near Haifa belonging to Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael and military boats, ships and oil storage depots in Haifa port.

The analysis from CNN geolocated the video to several locations around Haifa. These locations include a number of sensitive areas, including at least two military installations: a base in northern Haifa and the port of Haifa. The drone also flew over oil tanks located north of Haifa, Haifa airport and several residential areas.

A CNN also analyzed the shadows in the videos, which indicate that the drone’s mission over Haifa lasted several hours or took place over several days. Analysis shows that parts of the video have been sped up.

Weapons expert Wim Zwijnenburg, leader of the humanitarian disarmament project at the Dutch peace organization PAX, told CNN that a drone visible in the images appears to be “an Iranian-origin model of a Qasaf-2k, possibly locally manufactured.”

‘Psychological horror’

Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav described the video as “psychological horror” and demanded a protection plan for his city, criticizing IDF commanders for not having visited Haifa since the Hamas attack on October 7.

“I demand that the government presents a plan for the massive defense of Haifa and finds a military solution to eliminate the threat posed by the north,” Yahav told Reshet Bet radio station.

Hezbollah said the video was the “first episode,” suggesting that more videos would emerge from deep within Israeli territory.

A Hezbollah lawmaker in the Lebanese parliament who referenced the video in a social media post also suggested more is to come.

However, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer called the drone video the usual “malicious propaganda” and said that “we know precisely how to deal with [o Hezbollah] one way or another – diplomatically or through military means.”

Israeli military increases readiness

Israel has been preparing for the possibility that diplomatic efforts to reduce hostilities with Hezbollah will fail. The release of the images comes as Israel’s military says it has “approved and validated” operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon and made decisions on how to increase troop readiness in the field.

The plans were approved by the commander of Northern Command and the head of the Operations Directorate during a joint situational assessment to prepare for continued fighting, the IDF said in a statement.

The approval of the operational plans does not mean that a war between Israel and Hezbollah is imminent – ​​but it does signal that Israel intends to be prepared for such a scenario.

In response to the Hezbollah video, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said on Wednesday (19) that the Israeli military was “preparing and presenting solutions to deal with these and other capabilities.

“We have many more forces in the IDF that are involved in an offensive against Hezbollah,” Halevi said in a conversation with Israeli troops during an air defense battery along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

“I believe the enemy only knows a little about the capabilities we have and will engage them, when necessary, at the right time,” Halevi added.

Hezbollah has fired more than 5,000 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel since October 7, claiming its attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Hezbollah has said in the past that it will only stop firing at Israel if Israel stops the war in Gaza.

For its part, Israel carried out hundreds of attacks in Lebanon and removed around 60,000 residents from the northern border. More than 90,000 Lebanese also fled their homes in the region.

The US has sought a diplomatic way out to avoid a wider war that could escalate in the region, sending special envoy Amos Hochstein to Israel and Lebanon this week to try to ease tensions.

Israel and Hezbollah exchanged more cross-border fire on Wednesday in the latest round of hostilities, a day after Biden’s aide’s visit ended.

Hezbollah revealed that four of its fighters in southern Lebanon were killed without specifying when or how they died. The Iran-backed group also announced that it was targeting Metula and Kryat Shmona in northern Israel with drones.

Videos shared by Lebanese media close to Hezbollah showed clouds of smoke rising from the southern Lebanese village of Burghalia following an Israeli attack, with more attacks on other Lebanese villages including Mais Al-Jabal, Talat Al-Awaida, Al-Khiyam and Hula, according to state news agency NNA.