RAMALLAH, West Bank, 21 January 2008 — A number of Israeli ministers yesterday called for the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, a day after Hezbollah leader announced that his group was holding the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the July war on Lebanon.
Minister of Religious Affairs Yitzhak Cohen of Shas party said during the weekly Cabinet meeting that “Nasrallah is a cruel and crazy man.” “I don’t understand why he is still breathing. We should have liquidated him a long time ago. I recommend the Cabinet assassinate the man.”
Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit of ruling party Kadima echoed the sentiment, saying, “Nasrallah is a person who has crossed all inhuman lines. We don’t need to negotiate with him, we need to destroy him.” Housing and Construction Minister Ze’ev Boim reiterated Sheetrit’s call, referring to the Hezbollah leader as a “sewer rat who should dig his own hole.” The Arab minister in the Israeli government, Ghaleb Majadle, said Israel should first check to see whether Nasrallah’s claims were accurate.
“Perhaps he wants us to fall into a trap that would serve his agenda,” the minister said, “we must remain very sensitive to the pain of the bereaved families that lost their loved ones in the war.”
Nasrallah, one of Israel’s most wanted men, appeared in public for the first time in more than a year to attend a Shiite religious event of Ashura in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Saturday. “We have the heads, the hands, the feet and even a nearly intact cadaver from the head down to the pelvis,” he said in his speech. “The Israeli Army left behind the remains of the bodies of a large number of soldiers.”
Senior Israeli sources on Saturday said that the Jewish state would not negotiate with Hezbollah over the return of soldiers’ remains the Islamist group claimed to be holding and was focusing on obtaining the release of kidnapped soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
