Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus told Newsmax on Friday that the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah "is the major league of terrorist organizations."
Conricus' comments to "The Record with Greta Van Susteren" came hours after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech, his first public comments since Israel declared war on the Gazan terrorists Hamas.
Conricus said Nasrallah's speech went on for about 90 minutes. In the speech, Nasrallah spoke "many words" but stopped short of announcing that Hezbollah, which operates out of Lebanon, would enter the fray despite its buildup along Israel's northern border.
"Bottom line is that today Hezbollah has not attacked as they did yesterday," Conricus said. "And he did say that this was a 100% Palestinian issue, which may be interpreted, but we have to be careful about interpretations, that Hezbollah is perhaps not wanting to bury additional Shiite soldiers or operatives for the sake of Sunni terrorists in Gaza."
"But with Hassan Nasrallah and other terrorists in Lebanon, you never know. This could be a scheme. This could be a ruse and just an attempt to lead us astray," Conricus told Van Susteren. "We have to be vigilant."
Conricus added that Israel is not "aspiring" to get into an all-out war with terrorists as well funded as Hezbollah.
"Hezbollah is the major league of terrorist organizations," he said. "They have state-like capabilities in terms of quantity and quality of their firepower, personnel, training, and weapons. They are the best terror organization in the world, sadly, because they have been funded by Iran ever since, I think, 1983 and even before that. Lots of money, training and weapons have gone into that.
"So they hold significant military capabilities and if they will try to attack us, that will be a serious threat to our civilians, our home front and we will have to respond accordingly," Conricus said. "Not something that we are aspiring to do, but we have signaled clearly — if we will be attacked significantly, we will respond and the responsibility will be on Hezbollah.
"Those who will suffer will be the Lebanese."
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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