‘No more tolerance of Israel over Lebanese airspace’: Hezbollah head signals ‘new phase’ of conflict

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to usher in a “new phase” of conflict with Israel, insisting Tel Aviv will no longer violate Lebanese airspace with their drones and promising to respond in force.

In a video address on Monday afternoon, Nasrallah condemned the recent incursions into Lebanon by Israeli drones, threatening to shoot down the next such craft that breaches the country’s airspace.

“When we down the next Israeli drone in Lebanese airspace soon, those who want to complain that this will lead to an escalation, address your complaints to the Israelis who send these drones,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, Hezbollah aired footage of a rocket strike on Israeli military vehicles in the Avivim settlement near the border with Lebanon.

Footage of wounded Israeli soldiers being evacuated from the battlefield circulated in Israeli media, however local media reports now say the photos were part of a deception meant to convince Hezbollah their attack had been successful.

The IDF later responded to the rocket attacks with strikes of its own around the same area.

Nasrallah called the rocket attack an “achievement,” noting that it was deliberately carried out during daylight hours, and added a warning to Tel Aviv: “we say to the Israelis that … your soldiers there deep inside the occupied lands [in Israel] will be within our target and response zone in case any assault happens again.”

Last week the Lebanese Army fired on a pair of Israeli drones that breached the country’s airspace near the border town of al-Adaysa, though the drones returned to Israel undamaged. That came on the heels of another drone incursion days prior, when two Israeli ‘suicide UAVs’, reportedly laden with explosives, crashed in Beiruit, one of them damaging a Hezbollah media center, according to a spokesman for the group.

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