The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Nasrallah calls for avoiding civilian targets

Hassan Nasrallah has called for avoiding civilian targets on both sides:

BEIRUT: Hizbullah's leader offered Thursday to stop pounding Israel's "northern settlements" if the Jewish state refrained from bombarding Lebanon's "cities and civilians." Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also issued a warning, however, in a televised speech: "Let my words be clear, any attack on Lebanon's capital, Beirut, will result in Hizbullah bombarding the Zionist entity's capital, Tel Aviv."

In an almost immediate response aired on Israeli public television, a senior military official said Israel would destroy all of Lebanon's infrastructure if Tel Aviv were hit.

"We are ready to keep the whole thing restricted to a military fight with the Israeli Army," Nasrallah said, "on the ground, fighters to fighters."
I'm not sure how to interpret this except as an attempt to make Israel look bad and reinforce its image of an army that targets civilians, since Hizbullah would be in fact probably unwilling to fight a direct "battlefield" war rather than a guerrilla one, which it has proved relatively effective at doing. Anyway, the rest of the article is interesting -- and I'm surprised to see the Daily Star describe Hizbullah as "the resistance."