Lebanon’s Hezbollah: Not to give up al-Ghajar village to Israel

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses a speech via a video link in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, May 12, 2023. (PHOTO / AP)

BEIRUT – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday that Lebanon will not give up the southern village of al-Ghajar to Israel.

"Liberating al-Ghajar is the responsibility of the Lebanese people, state and resistance," Nasrallah said in a televised speech to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the 34-day war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006.

Nasrallah said that the Israeli enemy finished building a wall incorporating the northern part of al-Ghajar village in the occupied Golan Heights and turning it into a tourist area.

The Lebanese-Israeli border witnessed increasing tensions recently over the two Hezbollah-erected tents that Israel claimed were built on its territory

"We should operate as we did over the maritime border to take back our occupied land in al-Ghajar," Nasrallah said, hinting at the possibility of using drones to protect the village if necessary.

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Nasrallah added Israel built the fence in al-Ghajar before the two Hezbollah tents were erected, insisting that the tents of Hezbollah were installed on Lebanese land.

The Lebanese-Israeli border witnessed increasing tensions recently over the two Hezbollah-erected tents that Israel claimed were built on its territory.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli drone targeted Hezbollah members as they set up a watch tower on the outskirts of Lebanon's southern town of Yarine, a village in Tyre district, resulting in three injuries.

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Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, fought a month-long war in 2006 that ended in an UN-sponsored cease-fire.