EU to bear onus for any attack by Israel: Hezbollah

AFP/Beirut

The European Union’s decision to blacklist Hezbollah’s armed wing means it would share responsibility for any Israeli attack against Lebanon or the Shia movement, the group’s leader said yesterday.

“These (European) states have made themselves fully responsible for any Israeli attack on Lebanon or Lebanon’s resistance (Hezbollah) or any target of the resistance,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

The statement is Nasrallah’s first since an EU decision on Monday to blacklist Hezbollah’s military wing as a terror group.

“These states need to know... that they are giving legal cover to Israel for any attack on Lebanon, because Israel can now claim to be fighting terrorism and to be bombing terrorist targets,” he said.

The decision to blacklist Hezbollah’s armed wing “gives Israel a service for free”, Nasrallah added.

“This decision does not affect our willingness. Its objective is to make us bow, to force us to step back and to be afraid.

“But I tell you (Europeans): all you will get is failure and disappointment,” said Nasrallah.

He said Hezbollah, “which stood up to... the strongest army in the region for 33 days”, would not “bow” down.

Israel fought Hezbollah in 2006 for 33 days, in a war that killed some 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.