Lebanon's Hezbollah group has obtained precision rockets despite hundreds of Israeli strikes in recent years aimed at cutting off the supply route through Syria, the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah declared Thursday.
"No matter what you do to cut the route," Nasrallah said, addressing Israel in a televised speech, "the matter is over and the resistance possesses precision and nonprecision rockets and weapons capabilities."
Hassan Nasrallah spoke in a televised speech on Thursday to supporters commemorating Ashoura, one of the most important religious holy days for Shiite Muslims.
"If Israel forces a war on Lebanon, Israel will face a fate and a reality it has never expected on any day," he added, stressing that Hezbollah's precision weapons were "highly accurate."
Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has played a critical role in supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad during Syria's seven-year civil war.
Israel regards Iran and Hezbollah as the biggest threats on its borders and has uncharacteristically admitted to carrying out repeated strikes in Syria to prevent Hezbollah from getting Iranian arms deliveries.
Nasrallah said Israel knows the regional balance of power has changed, and that recent Israeli strikes in Syria to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring those weapons failed because this "has already been achieved."
In a separate speech on Wednesday, Nasrallah said his group will maintain its military presence in Syria until further notice and commended a Russian-Turkish agreement on the Syrian province of Idlib as a step toward reaching a political solution in the country.
"We will stay there [in Syria] even after the settlement in Idlib. Our presence there is linked to the need and the consent of the Syrian leadership," Nasrallah said.
"The calm of the fronts and the diminishing number of threats … will naturally affect the current numbers [of Hezbollah fighters in Syria]," he added, but insisted that "no one can force us out of Syria. We will stay there until further notice."
Nasrallah welcomed the outcome of Iranian, Russian and Turkish diplomatic efforts to spare Idlib a military offensive that could have led to a humanitarian catastrophe.
On Monday, Russia and Turkey agreed to shelve a military solution in Idlib in favor of enforcing a new demilitarized zone in the region from which "radical" rebels will be required to withdraw by the middle of next month.
"The outcome [of the diplomatic efforts] is good and reasonable but depends on results," Nasrallah said, describing the agreement as a step toward reaching a political solution to the more than seven-year conflict.
Russia, Assad's biggest outside backer in his fight against insurgents, has been preparing for an offensive on the city of Idlib, which is controlled by rebels and is now home to about 3 million people.
The United Nations had warned such an attack would result in a humanitarian disaster.
The Idlib region and adjoining territory north of Aleppo represent the opposition's last big foothold in Syria. Assad has recovered most of the areas once held by the rebels, with decisive military support from Iran, Russia and Hezbollah.
