BEIRUT, 22 November 2003 — The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance group, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, said yesterday his fighters would retaliate fiercely if Israel attacked Lebanon and Syria. “Aggression against our people, our infrastructure and our brothers will not go unanswered,” he told thousands of supporters at a rally in southern Beirut.

Israel bombed what it said was a Palestinian militant training camp near Damascus in October, the first Israeli air raid deep into Syria in 30 years, and has threatened more strikes if Syria did not restrain Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups.

“In this confrontation, we consider it is our legitimate right to strike (Israel) anywhere the resistance can reach,” Nasrallah said to chants of “God is Greatest”. “The arm of the resistance is long... The resistance’s response will exceed any expectations.”

The United States is chiefly to blame for attacks against Western interests across the Middle East, Nasrallah said. Nasrallah said: “If you consider what happened in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq and elsewhere, condemnation must be leveled primarily against the United States, even before knowing who is behind” these attacks, he told a crowd of thousands.

“The fact that the United States propagates democracy in the region, does nothing to diminish its responsibility for instability and death in the region,” he added. Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network has claimed responsibility for devastating bombings in Riyadh and Istanbul this month. Surging attacks across Iraq continue to kill Iraqis and US-led coalition troops on an almost daily basis.

The Israeli Army held an exercise last week in northern Israel, warning Lebanon and Syria — the main power broker in Lebanon — they would suffer if Hezbollah raised tensions there.

Hezbollah fighters, who played a key role in driving Israeli forces from south Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation, control large areas on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel. About 20,000 people attended the rally in Beirut’s mainly Shiite suburb, held to mark Jerusalem Day — an event held each year on the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan to promote Palestinian claims to Jerusalem.

Hundreds of unarmed Hezbollah members in military dress paraded in front of Nasrallah, many wearing Palestinian headscarves. “Israel must cease to exist,” they chanted as they vowed allegiance to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Security was tight at the rally with armed guards protecting the Hezbollah chief and other dignitaries who included representatives of the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Nasrallah reiterated that Hezbollah was determined to secure the freedom of hundreds of Lebanese and Arab prisoners held in Israel with or without negotiations. He said he could not comment on indirect negotiations between the group and Israel to swap more than 400 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli businessman and three Israeli soldiers, believed dead, held by Hezbollah.

“I renew our commitment to liberate the detainees,” Nasrallah said. “If the negotiations fail, we will do anything and adopt any option (to free them). We will never abandon our captives regardless of the threats.”

Nasrallah vowed for the “release of all Lebanese prisoners no matter what the sacrifice.” Last month, Nasrallah threatened that Hezbollah might resort to “kidnapping more Israelis to secure the release of all Arab and Lebanese prisoners from Israeli jails.”

Meanwhile, Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh said the only hope of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is through the emergence of a grassroots Palestinian movement inciting Israeli opinion to force a change of policy from its government.

“If we, the Palestinian people, stand up in hundreds of thousands and say ‘this is the peace we want and we are committed to it,’ this might actually create the required response on the Israeli street,” he said in an interview with AFP.

“And this required response on the Israeli street might have an impact on the type of Israeli government there is ... This is the only way,” he explained. Nusseibeh, president of Jerusalem’s Al-Quds University, drafted a peace plan together with Ami Ayalon, the former chief of Israel’s Shin Beth domestic security service.