BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Hezbollah is ready to respond to the occupying regime of Israel at any time and in any place, party chief Hassan Nasrallah underlined in a fiery speech Friday, two days after its troops ambushed a Zionist military convoy, killing at least two soldiers.
"Don't try us again,” Nasrallah warned in a televised speech during a Hezbollah ceremony commemorating the martyrdom of six party fighters and an Iranian commander in a Jan. 18 Israeli airstrike on the Golan Heights town of Qunaitra.
"We don’t want war but we don’t fear it,” he declared. "The resistance in Lebanon is not concerned with rules of engagement. It is our legitimate and legal right to fight aggression, wherever and whenever it may occur.
Nasrallah said: "If the Israel thinks that the resistance fears war, I tell them today in the commemoration of the Qunaitra martyrs and after the Shebaa revenge attack, that we don't fear war and we are not reluctant to engage in it if it is imposed on us.”
Nasrallah revealed that the Wednesday ambush against an Israeli military convoy was planned to resemble the occupying regime’s attack on a Hezbollah convoy 10 days earlier.
"They killed us in broad daylight, we killed them in broad daylight... They hit two of our vehicles, we hit two of their vehicles," he noted.
"As for the casualties, we’ll have to wait and see,” he added. Six Hezbollah members and an Iranian commander were martyred in the Israeli strike. The Zionist regime has acknowledged that at least two of its soldiers were killed in Hezbollah’s retaliation, but many speculate the casualty toll to be higher.
The main difference between the two attacks was that Tel Aviv did not immediately acknowledge that its soldiers were targeted, while Hezbollah announced the occupying regime’s attack in Qunaitra moments after the strike, he said.
Nasrallah said that threats by Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu against the individuals who carried out the attack in the Shebaa Farms indicates that he is evading military confrontation and is seeking to track them down to assassinate them.
But if any of Hezbollah’s cadre or youth are killed, Hezbollah will respond at any place and during any time it sees fit, he added.
Zionists have discovered over the past few days that their political and military leaders are amateurs, Nasrallah added, pointing to the occupying regime’s upcoming elections. The "foolishness” of this leadership has risked great dangers for Israel, he added.
He began his speech by noting that the attack on the Hezbollah convoy revealed the unity between Beirut, Damascus and Tehran.
Nasrallah said that the martyrs of the attack reflect a "fusion of Lebanese-Iranian blood on Syrian territory, and reflects the unity of the cause and the unity of the fate of these countries”.
"When blood unites Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, then we will move towards an era of victory,” he added.
The martyrdom of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Brig. Gen. Muhammad Ali Allahdadi and Hezbollah field commander Muhammad Issa shows how commanders are present on the ground along with the fighters, he added.
And the martyrdom of Jihad Mughniyeh, son of late-Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, shows how entire families have given themselves to the resistance, he added.
Nasrallah extended his condolences to the families of the victims and blessed the fallen fighters for their martyrdom.
The party leader also expressed his respect for the eight Lebanese soldiers killed during fierce clashes with militants near Ras Baalbek last week, likening the Takfiri threat to the Israeli one.
Nasrallah called the Zionist regime a "cancerous growth” in the region which is cooperating with the militants in Syria, including the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nura Front.
"In Syria, Israel has been backing the extremist groups and shelling regime positions under various excuses,” he said, adding that the Zionist regime is "taking advantage of the divisions in the region and the complete absence of the united stances of the Arab countries”.
"Thousands of members of Al-Nusra Front are present along the border with Israel in the occupied Golan Heights. Netanyahu is not at all concerned by the presence of Al-Nusra on Israel’s border. Israel however felt threatened by Hezbollah members and an Iranian general passing through Quneitra,” he mocked.
The motive behind the attack was clear, Nasrallah said.
The occupying regime of Israel had "planned, calculated and took a premeditated decision to assassinate” the men, he added, denying claims that they were planning an attack on the Zionist regime.
Nasrallah also denounced the Arab League for its lack of support to Palestine during periods of conflict, saying it has benefited the occupying regime of Israel more than the Palestinians.
The 22-member league "is not absent”, Nasrallah contended, "but does not exist at all”.
The 50-day Israeli assault on Gaza during July and August, he added, points to the failure of Arab states to react to the assault which killed around 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 400 children.