(JTA) — In a rare public appearance, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said of Israel, “removing it is a Lebanese national interest.”
“Israel poses a danger on all people of this region … including Lebanon,” Nasrallah said Friday in southern Beirut in what the World Bulletin news site said was his first public appearance since last September.
Nasrallah has lived in hiding for fear of assassination by Israel since Hezbollah fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006.
Speaking of Palestine, he said Palestinian leaders have no right to compromise on the land.
“The Palestine which we mean is a Palestine which stretches from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river and it should return to its rightful owners,” Nasrallah said, the Israeli news site Ynet reported. “No king, president, sheik, state or country has the right to give up even one clod of Palestinian land.”
His speech was delivered to an audience at an event marking al-Quds Day – a day devoted to Jerusalem and its extraction from Israeli control that was celebrated originally in 1979 in Iran. Nasrallah usually gives speeches via television screens.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
