Beirut
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that his group would wait for results of an investigation into the Beirut port explosion, but if it turns out to be an act of sabotage by Israel then it would “pay an equal price.”
The leader of the powerful Iran-backed Shi’ite Muslim group said in a televised speech that the two theories under investigation were that either an accident due to negligence, or sabotage caused the explosion of warehoused ammonium nitrate. Israel has denied any involvement in the Aug. 4 blast that killed 172 people, injured 6,000, damaged swathes of the city and left 300,000 homeless. Lebanon’s president has said investigators were looking into negligence, an accident or “external interference”. Nasrallah said that among sabotage possibilities, was a deliberate fire or the planting of a small bomb. “Who could be behind an act of sabotage? It could be this side or that, and it could be Israel, which nobody can deny,” he said. Hezbollah was waiting for the Lebanese probe’s results and if it found “this was a terrorist sabotage operation, and that Israel had a role, then not only Hezbollah will respond. The entire Lebanese state … must respond,” he said. “Israel will pay a price the size of the crime if it committed it.” Hezbollah, which exercises sway over government in Lebanon, has fought many wars with Israel. Lebanon’s Prosecutor General has pressed charges against 25 people.— Reuters
