BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, said that he was ready to go to Iran to seek fuel to help Lebanon deal with a shortage.
“We, Hezbollah, can go to Iran and negotiate with the Iranian government and buy shipments of fuel,” Nasrallah said.
Lebanon is in the throes of a deep financial crisis, and shortages in essential goods such as fuel and medicine have been worsening.
The purchases, he said, would be made in Lebanese pounds and would not require long waits for the central bank to approve dollar allocations.
“These scenes of humiliation, people should not bear,” he said, referring to long fuel lines in recent weeks.
Nasrallah reassured supporters that he was well after coughing episodes during his last speech caused concerns about his health.
“A human being is a human being, you get sick or tired sometimes,” Nasrallah said in his first media appearance since he coughed his way through a speech on May 25, when he said he was suffering from allergies and nothing serious.
Referring to social media rumors suggesting he had a grave illness, he said, “Some people killed us off and some started looking for a successor. I reassure them.”
Nasrallah has Hezbollah for nearly three decades, turning it into a group of regional influence.
“There are some people who expressed their love and distributed bread and salt and wrote and called and I reassure these,” Nasrallah said. “I cherish their love and thank [them] all.”
Nasrallah made his comments while delivering a speech on Lebanon’s financial crisis and political deadlock.
He urged politicians to urgently form a new cabinet.
Lebanon’s financial situation is complicated by the political deadlock as Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri and President Michel Aoun squabble over naming ministers.
A new cabinet is needed to enact reforms that could unlock foreign aid.
“Those responsible for government formation need to listen to people’s voices and look with pain at the cars queuing up for fuel and the loss of electricity and medication,” Nasrallah said.
He also said Muslims will eventually prevail over the Zionist regime and its allies’ efforts to interfere with their observing their religious rituals at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the holy occupied city of Al-Quds.
“I am still hopeful that we will pray together at the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque,” he said.
He pointed to the anniversary of Naksa (Setback), which marks the Israeli regime’s occupation of a whole host of regional territories -- including the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, where Al-Quds is located, Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms, and Syria’s Golan Heights -- in a Western-backed war in 1967.
The Hezbollah chief noted how the Palestinians across the occupied territories have been struggling “with patience and sacrifice” to preserve the status quo in Al-Quds and the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s compound throughout decades that have passed since the war.
Now, the international Muslim Ummah (Nation) has to pursue this matter shoulder to shoulder with them, Nasrallah said.
He also commemorated the memory of Imam Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic in Iran.
Nasrallah hailed how the late revolutionary leader breathed life into the global Muslim Nation and revitalized the spirit of resistance and fighting against oppression.
The Hezbollah leader thanked Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, leader of Yemen’s popular Ansarullah movement, for his expression of support for resistance efforts aimed at preserving Al-Quds and the Islamic sanctities there.
Nasrallah also congratulated the Yemeni people for their successful resistance and struggle against a U.S.-backed Saudi coalition that has been attacking the impoverished country since 2015.
“Now, we are witnessing the defeat of the aggressive Saudi-American coalition,” he said, adding, “Ever since the first day [of the war], we had faith in the Yemeni people’s strength for steadfastness and victory.”