Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has downplayed Israel’s latest threat of invasion, saying Tel Aviv will pay a heavy price if it imposes another war on Lebanon.

Addressing a gathering marking the group’s martyrs’ day on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief said that Lebanon’s resistance fighters are ready to take the strategic Galilee region, north of Israel, should another war with Israel breaks out.

Nasrallah’s remarks came shortly after Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israeli armed forces may cross into the southern Lebanese territory again and engage in a military confrontation with Hezbollah.

He said Israel has never had a reliable and realistic evaluation about Hezbollah’s power, which has resulted in the failure of Tel Aviv’s policies toward the resistance movement.

The popular Shia leader also urged Israeli officials to learn from their previous mistakes and stop the impossible imagination of defeating Hezbollah.

Israel fought a 33-day war against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 to destroy the military power of the Lebanese resistance. Tel Aviv was eventually forced to leave the region without achieving any of its objectives and after suffering a humiliating defeat.

The carnage destroyed most of Lebanon’s infrastructure and claimed the lives of more than 1,200 Lebanese — mainly civilians — and more than 160 Israelis — mostly soldiers.

During his speech, Nasrallah also hailed the popular uprising in Egypt and described the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s government as a huge loss for the US and Israel, saying Mubarak’s regime had helped Tel Aviv for years to tighten the grip on Palestinians.

The Hezbollah secretary general stressed that resistance movements in the region are a natural reaction of people to the West’s hegemony.

(Press TV)