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Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a July 13, 2022 address that was uploaded to the Spot Shot channel on YouTube that if Lebanon is unable to extract offshore oil and natural gas, then no one will be able to extract or sell gas and oil, either. He said that Hizbullah is prepared to attack the Karish oil field and that war is more honorable than fighting over food and gas. He also said that while Hizbullah is supportive of Lebanon's negotiations over demarcation of its maritime borders with Israel, it is not involved in the actual talks, and it reserves the right to "exert pressure on the enemy" and take steps that "serve the negotiations." In addition, he said that the recent drone attack on the Karish field was deliberately carried out with unarmed drones in order to provoke Israel into firing missiles in response, which would send the FPSO boat workers the message that they are unsafe and under a serious threat.
Hassan Nasrallah: "Some people ask: How come Hizbullah sent drones, while saying that it was backing the [Lebanese] state? You got it wrong, people. We said that we stand behind the state with regard to the demarcation of the maritime border. We do not interfere in this matter, but this does not mean that if the state accepts this or that approach, we would sign off on it. No. We are not involved in this. We are not for nor against. We do not wish to intervene in the demarcation of the maritime border.
"I've talked about it before, and there is no need for me to waste time on this again. The reasons are religious, cultural, ideological, moral, and tactical. This is what backing the state means. The state demarcates the border, and we do not intervene. By saying that we are backing the state, we mean that the state conducts the negotiations. We don't want to negotiate. Many people have spread rumors about Hizbullah joining the negotiations track, and that it has opened a channel of negotiation. These are all baseless lies. We are not involved with this to begin with. But we have never said that we would take a back seat to the state when it comes to exerting pressure on the enemy, and taking steps that would serve the negotiations. We have never said that.
"On the contrary, I have said that our hands will not be ties. So nobody should misunderstand this. We did not give out commitment to anyone, and we are not doing it now. We are following the developments, and we have the right to take any measure we deem appropriate, at any time, in any scope, and in any form, in order to pressure the enemy, for the benefit of the Lebanese negotiators. We sent three drones of different sizes, like it said in the communique by the resistance. They were unarmed on purpose. Why? Even when I discussed this matter with some brothers before making the decision, we agreed that we would send drones so that the Israelis could shoot them down. The brothers said that we could send a drone on a reconnaissance mission and bring it back. But there was a consensus that we should send drones to conduct reconnaissance, and that the Israelis would shoot them down. Why? Because we wanted the [Israeli] air force to launch missiles. Honestly. We wanted the [Israeli] warships to launch sea-air missiles.
"We wanted there to be fire in their area, so that the engineers and the employees on the [FPSO] boat take notice that they are operating in an area that is not safe, that there is a real and serious threat.
[...]
"For the first time in the history of the Israeli entity, three drones were launched at it at the same time. We are capable of sending a large number of drones simultaneously. We can send them unarmed, we can send them armed, and they can be of different sizes. With the help of Allah, we can do this. There is no problem in this regard. We did not send three drones because we could not send five. No. We sent three because three were enough to deliver our message.
[...]
"There are people who want the Lebanese to die of hunger. They want us to fight one another, in the bakeries and in the gas stations. They want us to fight one another over bread, because the Lebanese pound is worthless, the salaries are worthless. Someone wants to destroy this country. No. I am being completely honest tonight. If the alternative is that Lebanon receives on aid – and this is the normal way to help the country – and Lebanon is pushed towards collapse, hunger and people fighting one another. No. War is a much more honorable alternative. The threat of war, and even going into war, is much more honorable and glorious. The first track of letting things collapse and go into ruin has no future. There is no future in people fighting over food, but a war has a future. If we decide to go to war, this alternative has a future.
"The enemy can be defeated – before the war, when it begins, during the war, when it ends...
"Then we will be able to impose our conditions, bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, and save our country. Whoever dies in such a war dies as a martyr, rather than dying in an altercation at a bakery or a gas station.
[...]
"The message of the drones is a modest beginning, [indicating] where we can go. If things reach a negative ending – we will not stand only in the face of the Karish gas field. We are now commemorating the July [2006] war, so mark the new equation: Karish, what's beyond Karish, and what's beyond that. I brought with me a chart, prepared by our relevant brothers in the resistance.
"We are monitoring everything that is happening along the Palestinian shore. All the fields, wells, and rigs. We know their names, everything that is happening there, which are working, which are not yet working, where the drilling is still in development, and so on and so forth. We are monitoring all the details. If you reach an equation of Lebanon... I'm not saying the Karish and Qana fields. For me, the question is a much bigger one.
"If you want to reach an equation where Lebanon is forbidden from saving itself by means of its natural right to [its share of] gas and oil, nobody will be able to extract oil and gas, and nobody will be able to sell oil and gas."
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