Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah promised to import gasoline and diesel from Iran to Lebanon amid an ongoing oil shortage in the country, hours after a fuel tank exploded in northern Lebanon, killing 28 people.
“I assure you, God willing, we will definitely bring diesel and gasoline from Iran, and in these two days I will inform you when,” said Nasrallah on Sunday, adding that he would announce when the oil would come in the next few days.
Nasrallah has warned that Hezbollah would import Iranian oil on its own if the Lebanese government did not. Iranian oil is subsumed under international sanctions. Such a move could bring Iranian fuel tankers close to Israel’s shores.
The announcement comes as tensions run high between Israel and Iran after the Iranian drone strike against the Israeli-managed Mercer Street tanker off Oman in July, killing a British and a Romanian citizen. The United States, the United Kingdom and Israel have all threatened retaliation. Iran has denied responsibility and claimed Israel and the US are attempting to destabilize the region.
A few days later, Iranian forces reportedly attempted to hijack the Asphalt Princess tanker near the United Arab Emirates, but jumped ship after workers sabotaged the engines, according to The Times of London.
In March, The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv reported dozens of Iranian ships attacked by Israel, after The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had attacked a dozen Iranian oil tankers headed to Syria. After Nasrallah’s speech on Sunday, Hezbollah-affiliated operative Ali Shoeib tweeted that “a tank for a tank,” an apparent warning to Israel not to attack tankers carrying Iranian oil to Lebanon.
The statement comes just over a week after Hezbollah fired 19 rockets toward Israel after the IAF conducted air strikes in Lebanon in response to earlier rocket fire launched from Lebanon.
In Sunday’s speech, Nasrallah claimed that the crisis in Lebanon is being “run by the Americans from the American embassy,” adding that Iran is standing by Lebanon to help.
“What is happening today in Lebanon is the same as what is happening in Iraq, because the chaos is being managed from the same one room,” added Nasrallah.
Nasrallah asked the Lebanese people “not go where the enemy wants.”
The Hezbollah leader called for the country to build a self-sufficient economy without foreign aid and imports,having encouraged Lebanon earlier in the statement to accept Iranian aid.
Nasrallah drew parallels to the situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban quickly re-conquered the country this week after the US withdrew, stressing that only the people of Lebanon, the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah could protect Lebanon.
The Hezbollah leader demanded an investigation into the fuel tanker explosion and the punishment of those responsible. Decrying the accusations and political statements after the incident, he said, “after harsh and sad events, people usually put differences aside and extend a helping hand to one another, but we are a strange country and since Sunday morning we have witnessed a very harsh settling of scores.”
Nasrallah expressed hopes that the disaster would put pressure on politicians to quickly form a government to manage the crisis.
On Sunday, Lebanese reports indicated that the tanks had been holding fuel to be smuggled to Syria. Hezbollah has been accused of smuggling oil from Lebanon into Syria in the past.
The owner of the land where the fuel tanks were located stated in a video clip on Sunday that he did not know the tanks were being used for smuggling fuel and that the owner of the tanks disappeared without a trace about three months ago, according to the Lebanese An-Nahar news.
The owner claimed that one of the people at the site threw a cigarette into the fuel tank. The investigation continues and no official statement has been made. Different Lebanese reports have said that a lighter and gun shots by the landowner sparked the explosion.
The tank explosion quickly led to a political explosion as officials from the Future Movement, led by former prime minister Saad Hariri, and the Free Patriotic Movement founded by Lebanese President Michel Aoun and allied with Hezbollah, accused each other of responsibility, even accusing specific MPs of being directly involved in the disaster.
Many of the Lebanese reports stressed that the investigation should look into politicians who protected oil smugglers, and warned that unrest following the explosion could turn violent.
On Sunday, Hariri called on Aoun to resign, telling him to “leave now and preserve some dignity for your future, because you will not find an embassy to shelter you soon or a plane that will help you escape the curse of history.”
The head of Lebanon’s Kataeb Party and former Maronite MP, Samy Gemayel, in a tweet Sunday called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to “take forceful decisions to stop the genocide against the Lebanese people & to liberate Lebanon from the grip of its destructive rulers.” During a meeting of the Supreme Defense Council, Aoun warned against “the politicization of the tragedy.”