Hizbullah fighters possess an arsenal of rockets that can reach "any point" in the state of Israel, including Tel Aviv, the movement's leader said Monday in an interview.
"We could absolutely reach any corner and any point in occupied Palestine," Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told pan-Arab Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel and Hizbullah's Al-Manar television.
The interview marks a year since the monthlong war between Israel and Hizbullah. Repeating earlier claims, the Shiite leader said his fighters could have fired at Tel Aviv last summer during the conflict, but had avoided doing so. "Even until the last day of the war, we were ready to fire rockets on Tel Aviv if (central) Beirut was hit," Nasrallah said.
"In July and August 2006, there wasn't a place in occupied Palestine that the rockets of the resistance could not reach, be it Tel Aviv or other cities," he said. "We could absolutely do that now," he added. "We can reach any target and any point in occupied Palestine," he repeated.
"When the confrontation started, we were assuming that it was a normal retaliation to the capturing of the Israeli soldiers, but at night, when the Israeli government took its decision (to open a war), we declared general alert and every human and material capability available to Hizbullah was put at the disposal of the battle. During the 48 hour truce agreement that took place in Beirut, we did not fire rockets, but when the truce ended, we fired 4000 rockets in a very short time. The Israelis could not grasp the resistance's level of control and management and wondered saying: was Hizbullah really capable of controlling all its forces in the south and the Western Bekaa for 48 hours?"
Nasrallah also spoke on the missile strike against the advanced Israeli warship "Sa'ar 5" on the second day of the aggression. He said that the decision that was taken on that day was to use the unique missiles, which was part of Hizbullah's secret arsenal. Hizbullah leader stressed those who carried out the attack were Lebanese engineers in the Islamic Resistance. During the war Israel claimed that the missile system was operated by Iranian experts.
"We took the decision and the fighters were ready and so were their weapons. The crew that fired the rocket was also ready and they all headed to a certain point on the shore line facing the Israeli battleship and then they gave us a signal that they had the warship in firing range. I consider this as one of the many triumphs, that a Lebanese experienced crew fires for the first time at a battleship under the hard circumstances of the war, and hit it with the very first rocket. This is unusual in all military schools. There are two trends who explained this, one that says that it was an outcry and the other says that there had been some kind of care, as Almighty Allah says in the holy Koran: "So you did not slay them, but it was Allah Who slew them, and you did not smite when you smote (the enemy), but it was Allah Who smote."
Nasrallah boasted of Hizbullah's "strategic" accomplishments during the war, saying: "We succeeded in largely destroying the project of Greater Israel." Nasrallah also said that Syria had been willing to engage in last year's war. However, he said: "Hizbullah did not see the interest in that, and that the Israelis took into account the Syrian preparation but did not act militarily on the front which may require Syrian advancement."
Nasrallah insisted Monday that Israel had failed to hit any important Hizbullah cache during the war. "The targets that they hit were not weapons depot," he said. "Those were not hit."
Nasrallah refused to say on Monday whether the two Israeli soldiers whose capture on July 12 2006 sparked the war, were alive or dead. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that Hizbullah representatives who took part in a meeting of rival Lebanese factions in Paris earlier this month had led him to understand that the two captured soldiers were still alive.
"Not true," said Nasrallah. "Our brothers do not answer to this kind of questions. This is something that is left to negotiations," he said, adding that the movement would only give out information on the two soldiers in return for a gesture from Israel regarding Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. "Why would we offer information in exchange for nothing?" he asked.
Nasrallah denied media reports that he lived in Syria or in the Iranian embassy in Beirut during the war.
