Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said a missile salvo from Syria into the Israeli Golan Heights last week marked a "new phase" in the Syrian war, demonstrating that Damascus and its allies will no longer tolerate Israeli attacks in Syria.
Israel has said the attack from Syrian territory was carried out by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which established the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982. Iranian forces and Hezbollah have deployed in Syria to support Syrian President Bashar Assad in a civil war that began in 2011.
Israel said it bombed nearly all of Iran's military infrastructure in Syria in response to the rocket salvo, which represented the first time Iranian forces directly fired at Israeli territory in the most violent military exchange between the foes in recent decades.
In a televised speech on Monday, Nasrallah claimed 55 missiles were fired at the Golan, Tiberias and Safed in Thursday's attack – nearly three times more than the 20 missiles Israeli media reported had been fired at Israel. None of the rockets hit Israeli targets, however, with some landing inside Syria and others intercepted by Israeli missile defense systems.
Nasrallah did not say whether Hezbollah had played a role in the rocket attack, which he said was a retaliation for "Israel's continued aggression against Syria."
"The message delivered … is that neither the Syrian leadership, nor the Syrian army, nor the Syrian people, nor the allies of Syria will allow Syria to remain exposed to Israeli attacks, and they are ready to go to the furthest extent," he said.
Israel, which fears Iran and Hezbollah are turning Syria into a new front against it, has struck targets in the country many times during the war, targeting Hezbollah and Iranian positions.
"Israel had tried to disguise the scale of the attack," he said, maintaining the rocket attack had set the stage for "an entirely new phase."
"You as an enemy will not be able to continue to target Syria and the axis of resistance [Iran, Hezbollah and Syria] without retaliation," he said, adding, "This qualitative rocket attack establishes … a completely new phase" in the conflict with Israel.
Nasrallah went on to say that Israel has downplayed its losses in the strikes, in which he claimed 55 rockets hit military targets in the Golan. Israel had said it downed 20 rockets coming from Syria.
Nasrallah said Israel had not struck strategically significant targets during its attacks in Syria, which he said mostly hit a number of posts in Syria that had already been evacuated. He said Syrian air defenses downed a number of Israel's missiles.
He said the barrage "broke the prestige" of Israel and that the attack, Israel's response and its response against Gaza protests on Monday show it is far from ready to face its opponents.
"If anyone is afraid of war in the region, it is Israel," Nasrallah said. He said Israel's home front was not prepared for a military confrontation with Hezbollah.
"If we launch missiles at Israel [again], Israeli society will collapse."
Ahead of last week's attack, Iran had vowed to respond to an Israeli attack which it said had killed seven of its military personnel at a Syrian air base in April.
Addressing Israel, Nasrallah said: "If you thought that you could kill and bomb without receiving a response, then you are wrong and misguided, and the response will be in the appropriate form and time."
Israel said the attack was carried out by the Quds Force, an external arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The White House said Iran's deployment of offensive rocket and missile systems in Syria aimed at Israel was "an unacceptable and highly dangerous development for the entire Middle East.
He added that a message had been delivered to Israel via an international party that if it crossed "red lines" then the next bombardment would strike deep inside Israel.
Nasrallah did not spell out what the "red lines" were.
He also blasted Bahrain's foreign minister, calling him an "idiot" and a "traitor" for supporting Israel's right to respond to the barrage of rockets coming from Syria.
Nasrallah called the creation of Israel 70 years ago a "mark of shame" for humanity.
He said U.S. and Israeli pressure on Iran was not just because of its nuclear program, but in essence because of its support of the Palestinians and other "resistance" groups. He urged the Palestinians not to accept any new U.S. peace plans.
Earlier on Monday, Nasrallah's deputy, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said the attack had affirmed "the balance of deterrence" between Israel and its adversaries.
