Nasrallah blames Israel for 17,000 Lebanese missing persons

Hezbollah leader calls for political solution in Syria.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
nasrallah speech on tv 370 (photo credit: REUTERS)
nasrallah speech on tv 370
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Israel is responsible for “all Lebanese who have gone missing,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared in a speech in southern Beirut on Monday, according to the group’s Al-Manar TV website.
Speaking on a large screen, he also said that Syrian events were affecting everything in Lebanon, the website reported.
“There are 17,000 missing people due to the Israeli occupation,” he stated, calling for the appointment of a group to follow up on the matter.
Regarding Syria, he said its army’s advances on the battlefield had changed the reality there so that the opposition no longer saw a military solution as a possibility.
“The whole world believes that there will be no military solution for Syria. The available and acceptable solution is the political one,” he said.
Saudi Arabia, he claimed, is upset about the way things are going in Syria and has provided fighters with $30 billion in support.
He also blamed the Sunniand Christian-dominated opposition in Lebanon for blocking the formation of a new Lebanese government.
Following the speech, Lebanon’s Future Movement, led by former prime minister Saad Hariri, stated that Nasrallah’s remarks constituted “psychological war,” the Now Lebanon website reported.
Meanwhile, Al-Arabiya cited Syrian opposition sources as claiming late Monday that an attack on a Hezbollah office in a Damascus suburb had left many wounded. This followed another Syrian rebel claim of a Saturday attack that allegedly killed 15 Hezbollah fighters.