Lebanon's Hezbollah says 'surprising' Israel took so long to find tunnels

Iran-backed Hezbollah has “for years” been able to enter Israel, the Lebanese group’s leader said on Saturday, responding for the first time to Israel’s discovery of tunnels dug into Israeli territory from Lebanon.

Israel’s unveiling of what it called Hezbollah “attack tunnels” last month, and Lebanon’s accusation that an Israeli border barrier crosses into its territory, have increased tensions.

Israel regards Iran as its biggest foe and Hezbollah as the main threat on its borders. It has waged an increasingly open campaign of military strikes against them both in Syria, where they are fighting on the government side in the civil war.

Speaking in an interview with al-Mayadeen TV, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah did not want to draw Lebanon into a war with Israel.

But he said there was a fear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might miscalculate before the Israeli elections in April and “do something rash”.

He warned that the “resistance axis”, as the group refers to itself, Iran and Syria, might change their reaction to Israeli strikes in Syria, including with a bombardment of Tel Aviv.

Read: Israel says hunt over for Hezbollah tunnels from Lebanon

Both Israel and Hezbollah have already indicated that any new war between them would be greater in scope than the last one, fought in 2006 in Lebanese territory. Nasrallah said:

Part of our plan in the next war is to enter into Galilee, a part of our plan we are capable of, God willing. The important thing is that we have this capability and we have had it for years

He added that all of Israel would be the battlefield and reiterated that the group now had precision rockets that could strike deep into Israel.