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Yaalon Says Hizbullah has Possibly 'Accumulated more Self-Confidence'

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Wednesday that Hizbullah might have more self-confidence, days after the party's chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah pledged to defeat jihadists and expressed readiness for a new confrontation with the Jewish state.

“It’s possible that Hizbullah has accumulated more self-confidence than we thought,” Yaalon told Haaretz daily in an interview.

He said the Shiite party is trying to maintain a new balance of deterrence on both the Lebanese and the Syrian borders.

“Victory will be the ally of the mujahideen in their battle against takfiri and terrorist groups the same way it was their ally in the confrontation with the Israeli enemy,” Nasrallah told Hizbullah cadres during a recent visit to the eastern Bekaa Valley.

“Once, the Syrian regime used to activate Hizbullah to strike at us in south Lebanon, without our being able to blame the regime for direct responsibility. Now, Hizbullah is operating the same way on the Golan Heights,” Yaalon said.

According to Haaretz, Israel attributes several of the incidents of the past year in the Golan to the groups connected to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime in Syria but operating under the inspiration of Hizbullah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Yaalon said that Hizbullah is sending its fighters to Iraq and Syria against its will, under orders from Iran.

The party is also mired in a war against extremist Sunni factions in the Bekaa, he said, adding Hizbullah has additional problems, aside from the tension with Israel.

“The incidents with us don’t prove that Hizbullah is planning an escalation,” the minister told Haaretz. “We reacted forcefully. Let Hizbullah decide whether it’s worth its while to escalate.”

G.K.

H.K.


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