Jan
19
Hezbollah-leider Nasrallah heeft zich voor het eerst sinds september 2006 in het openbaar vertoond. Hij hield een speech in een zuidelijke wijk van Beiroet, waar sjiieten de staat op gingen om het Ashoura festival te vieren.
Nasrallah zei in zijn toespraak dat de Hezbollah lichaamsdelen van omgekomen Israelische soldaten in het bezit heeft. De soldaten zouden zijn gesneuveld tijdens de tweede Libanon oorlog.
Uit Haaretz:
“Oh Zionists, your army is lying to you… your army has left the body parts of your soldiers in our villages and fields,” Nasrallah said.
“Our mujahideen used to fight these Zionists, killing them and collecting their body parts. I am not talking about regular body parts. I tell the Israelis, we have the heads of your soldiers, we have hands, we have legs,” he added.
The last time Nasrallah appeared in public was in September 2006 at a victory rally marking the end of the month-long war between Israel and the militant Shi’ite group. Since then, he has only addressed his supporters through video-links or on television.
Addressing a mass rally, Nasrallah vowed that Lebanon would not accept a “surrenderist” peace plan with Israel, declaring the only way was “resistance.”
“I announce that our forces are on full alert to confront any possible war against Lebanon,” he said.
“If Israel carries out any new aggression against us, we promise to retaliate in a war that will change the whole map of the region,” Nasrallah warned.
Referring to recent violence in the Gaza Strip, Nasrallah said: “We will not accept this oppression against the people of Palestine. I call on the Arab nation to stand and back their resistance movement’s military, and financially to confront [U.S. President George W.] Bush’s massacre of the people of Gaza.”
Footage broadcast on Hezbollah’s al-Manar television and other stations carried pictures of the black-turbaned Nasrallah surrounded by a sea of people.
Hezbollah supporters marched in procession with banners proclaiming: “We will not be humiliated”. They also blocked suburban roads, chanting “death to America, death to Israel.”
“Oh God protect Nasrallah,” the huge crowd chanted. Veiled women wept as the Hezbollah leader walked among them, while men raised their fists chanting, “Nasrallah is our leader.”
The Ashoura festival marks the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, who died in a battle in 680 against the leader of what became the Sunni branch of Islam. The battle took place in Karbala, which is located in present-day Iraq.
Nasrallah further denounced Bush’s tour to the Middle East last week as “devilish.”
In remarks on Lebanon’s political crisis, Nasrallah reiterated that the opposition, which is led by his movement, backs the Arab Legaue plan.
The three-point plan is for the election of army chief General Michel Suleiman as president, a national unity government in which no one party has veto power and the adoption of a new electoral law.
Although the ruling coalition has given the plan its full backing, Hezbollah insists that the opposition be granted one-third of the seats in a new government so it can have veto power.
Everyone – the majority and the opposition – should have a fair share in ruling the country, Nasrallah said, adding: “If someone in Lebanon is looking to internationalize the Lebanese crisis, we tell them ‘you are dreaming.’ We will not accept an American-Zionist solution for our political crisis.”
Lebanese lawmakers are scheduled to meet again on Monday to try and elect a president, but there is expectaion the parliamentary session will meet the same fate as the 12 previous ones, and be postponed.
Arab League chief Amr Mussa, who arrived in the Syrian capital from Beirut on Friday, reported progress in negotiations between the pro- and anti-Syrian factions over the deadlock.
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