Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah condemned efforts by Saudi Arabia and other nations to normalize relations with Israel, calling such moves "an attack on al-Aqsa and an abandonment of Palestine" in a speech on Monday night.
“The Zionists must hear the voice of the Islamic world regarding the first qibla of Muslims (another name for al-Aqsa), and instead of hearing this voice, we find more movement towards normalization,” lamented the Hezbollah leader. “Any country that might sign a normalization agreement must be condemned because it is an attack on the Palestinian people and the al-Aqsa Mosque and strengthens the enemy.”
Nasrallah called for Arab countries to “bear responsibility for what is happening in Palestine, regardless of its preoccupations, and to also pay attention to what is happening to Al-Aqsa Mosque, so that the violation does not become a routine matter, and so it will not be divided in time and space or transformed into a Jewish synagogue.”
Some 2,163 Jewish pilgrims have visited the Temple Mount so far during the intermediary days of Sukkot, according to the Temple Mount Administration. Some 1,415 pilgrims went up on Monday alone, marking the highest number of visitors in a single day on the intermediary days of the holiday.
'We do not compromise on our land rights'
Nasrallah additionally referred to the dispute between Lebanon and Israel concerning the land border between the two countries, stating that the mediation on the matter is focusing on the town of Ghajar (which is split in half by the Blue Line) and the tents set up by Hezbollah in territory claimed by both Israel and Lebanon in the Shebaa Farms area.
Nasrallah stressed that the issue of mediation is for the Lebanese government to handle, not Hezbollah, and insisted that there is no reason to discuss demarcating the border between Israel and Lebanon because the border was already demarcated in agreements between the UK and France in the 1920s.
Nasrallah also referenced efforts to find oil and natural gas in Block 9, the area of Lebanese territorial water bordering Israel, claiming that “all indicators are positive” in the search for resources in the block.
“Our maritime rights, as well as our land rights, we take in full and do not compromise on. The resistance is present to support the Lebanese state in any step that contributes to liberating the land,” added the Hezbollah leader.