Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, stated in a video-taped statement that the terror group has amassed enough rockets that it could hit Israel’s toxic gas tanks in Haifa to ‘to kill tens of thousands of Israelis;’ the death toll would be the equivalent of Israel being hit by a nuclear bomb. Theses tanks hold deadly ammonia gas and if a leak were to be discovered, thousands of Israelis in Haifa would be affected.
[revad1]
According to U.S. and Israeli security sources, Iran and Syria have been helping Hezbollah stockpile rockets to the tune of 100k+ since its 33 day war against Israel in 2006. Hezbollah’s veiled threat to hit Haifa’s tanks with these rockets prompted Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon to press the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to immediately condemn the terrorist group for
“this threat of the mass murder of innocents,”
especially since Hezbollah has been steadily building on its military presence in southern Lebanon.
Translated by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Nasrallah is quoted:
“The people of Haifa fear a lethal attack on the containers – there are huge containers there – which store ammonia… In the 2006 war we refrained from attacking those containers, [t]hey store there over 15,000 tons – let me repeat, tons – of this gas, which might cause the deaths of tens of thousands of people.”
(regarding the risk of death if the tanks were to leak)
“In other words, Lebanon has a nuclear bomb. This is no exaggeration, absolutely not. (laughing) We don’t really have a nuclear bomb. It’s a nuclear bomb in a sense that several missiles launched from here, together with the ammonia containers in Haifa, will lead to the same impact as a nuclear bomb.”
During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, Hezbollah was able to fire rockets that exceeded the distance needed to hit these tanks in Haifa to the tune of 30 miles; hitting these tanks with 100k+ rockets is a very real possibility. Despite the war ending with a U.N.-brokered ceasefire with Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah continues to ignore the mandates of said resolution and has not disarmed nor stopped its offensive posture in southern Lebanon. Ambassador Danon stated that Hezbollah’s refusal to abide by the resolution comes from the senior leadership in Iran as Iran continues its proxy war against Syria and Bashar Al-Assad.
Israel has been in the process of removing the ammonia tanks from Haifa to a production plant in southern Israel.
Do you think Hezbollah will carry out this threat and if so, what would be the end result? Sound off in the comments below!
