News - Middle East: The Secretary-General of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement on Wednesday paid glowing tribute to martyrs, including Iran’s Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, for contributing to the Arab country’s liberation from Israel.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was speaking on the occasion of Lebanon’s Liberation Day, which is marked every year as the day the Arab country was liberated from the ‘Israeli’ occupation, calling it the "last nail in the coffin" of "Greater Israel."

He singled out Iran and Lt. Gen. Soleimani for “huge contributions” in the last days of the Israeli regime’s occupation of south Lebanon.

He said 25th of May, 2000, was “one of the few happy days” the region has experienced in over 40 years, when people in Lebanon did not just smile but “cried out of joy”.

Nasrallah said the day is Lebanon's “greatest accomplishment” and a “constant reminder of the murderousness, barbarity of Israel, which pretends to be normal, modern state with which regional countries can coexist.”

“This was the final nail in the coffin of "Greater Israel" - because the Israeli army that can't continue to occupy south Lebanon, which is the weakest place in the region, cannot establish a Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates,” he said.

The leader of the Hezbollah movement said the landmark day was an “inflection point in Israel's history leading to Quds Sword/what we saw in May 2021, building strategic path leading to Israel's downfall.”

“We are speaking today of the happiest day in our [Lebanon's] modern history,” Nasrallah stated.

He said through resistance the country was able to take back its rights and freedom, and “not wait for any Arab regimes or anyone else to liberate us.”

“Thank God, who worked through the hands of human beings, to fulfill this victory, and we thank all Lebanese of all stripes who aided the resistance, and the martyrs and the fighters,” the Hezbollah chief said.

The liberation, he said, was not "a walk down the street" but the “result of blood, tears, and fingers hitting the triggers against the enemy.”

After paying rich tribute to the martyrs, he said he would thank all the war veterans and prisoners who endured the suffering of imprisonment in the Israeli occupation prisons.
“I thank all our people, from all sects, who sacrificed and supported us all along,” he said.

‘Israeli provocations threaten region with explosion’

The Hezbollah leader, meanwhile, warned that the Israeli regime’s and illegal Israeli settlers’ provocative moves in the occupied territories might lead to “a great explosion” in the region.

Nasrallah was referring to a pending so-called “March of the Flags,” which is expected to take place by extremist Israeli settlers. The yearly event witnesses the settlers march through the heart of the main Palestinian thoroughfare in occupied East al-Quds’ Old City, waving Israeli flags and chanting anti-Palestinian slogans.

“The Flag March is a great provocative move,” Nasrallah said. He also pointed to calls on the part of a far-right Israeli group for “demolition” of the Dome of Rock, a hugely-revered monument by the world's Muslim community that lies on the al-Aqsa Mosque's compound.

“There is consensus within the Palestinian resistance for a reaction [to such provocative moves]. Things may lead to a great explosion inside Palestine,” said the Hezbollah chief.

“Whatever action targeting the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of Rock would unsettle the region. [Because] such violation provokes every freedom-seeking and honorable human being,” he warned.

“The enemy should not resort to something that would bring about tragic consequences for its temporary existence…as any such move would be followed by dangerous repercussions for it,” Nasrallah said, adding, “Of course, this depends on the enemy’s foolishness.”