Nasrallah declares victory over Israel, Olmert licks his wounds

Secretary-general of the Lebanese Hizbullah party Hassan Nasrallah has affirmed that his party’s fighters and Lebanon as a whole have achieved a strategic and historic victory over Israel, heaping praise on martyrs of the Lebanese resistance and people.

In a televised speech broadcasted live on the party’s Manar TV Monday night, Nasrallah asserted that elements and supporters of Hizbullah will spare no moment in rebuilding what the “Israeli enemy” had destroyed, promising to hand every affected family a sum of money that could help them rent and furnish a house anywhere in Lebanon for one year while rebuilding their homes.

Further, Nasrallah deprecated certain voices that disappeared during the aggressive war on Lebanon, but surfaced now to demand disarming Hizbullah, saying, “You are wrong in timing the demand when even America and Israeli excluded such suspicious demands from the UNSC 1701 resolution ending military operation in Lebanon”.

The charismatic Lebanese leader affirmed that no demands of such a nature will be entertained by the party unless the Lebanese state stood up again and possessed strong and robust army that could deter any Israeli aggression in the future, elaborating that the Lebanese army in its current structure and capabilities couldn?t engage in a war with Israel; thus, he insisted, the demand is irrelevant.

“The strong and able Lebanese state will automatically lead Hizbullah to disarm itself as there will be no reason for any party to arm itself in the light of the presence of a strong state and strong army”, Nasrallah underlined.

Olmert licking wounds; regrets failure:
Israeli premier Ehud Olmert was perhaps licking his wounds while listening to Nasrallah speech, as he acknowledged countless defaults in the IOF operation in Lebanon that, according to him, must be reviewed thoroughly.

“There were lapses in our military operation in Lebanon that we will not hide or conceal, but we shall examine them very well”, said Olmert who also declared shouldering the entire responsibility for the war and its outcomes.

“As a premier, I bear the full responsibility for the war decision and I intend not to share that responsibility with anyone else”, he asserted.

In a speech before the Israeli Knesset (parliament), Olmert stressed that the focus at this point of time is to rebuild what has been destroyed in the northern settlements.

For his part, Israel’s war minister Amir Peretz, who went on saying that his troops will end the job successfully and wipe out Hizbullah, decided to form a committee to probe the war where Israel suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Hizbullah fighters.

According to reports circulating in the Hebrew state, a profound misunderstanding was recorded between Peretz and IOF chief of staff Dan Halutz over the bitter defeat in Lebanon, with sources suggesting that Halutz’s days in position are numbered.

Political opponents of Olmert and a number of disgruntled Hebrew newspapers and political analysts among other sectors demanded that Olmert, Peretz, and foreign minister Tzipi Livni should resign immediately, and urged early parliamentary elections in the Hebrew state.

According to an American diplomatic report the IOF troops lost 343 soldiers ion addition to 617 servicemen injured with Hizbullah weapons.

The report further added that contrary to what Israel publicly declares, there were around 200 Israeli state-of-the-art Mirkava tanks knocked down and/or destroyed with Hizbullah anti-tanks missiles.

IOF troops were deliberately hiding the real figure of their casualties and losses to avoid popular anger that if occurred could turn the table on heads of Olmert and the rest of his cabinet members.

“Olmert’s government lost the war, and Lebanon, through Hizbullah, emerged victorious; and we must deal with this fact objectively”, the report concluded.

Such a fact was also seconded by a Muslim lawmaker in the Russian parliament Shamil Sultanov who asserted that the Muslim world didn?t bow to the American pressures.

“The current war on Lebanon unveils the level of resistance in the Muslim world, and proves that the war was part of the western aggression on the Muslim world as a whole, and not against Hizbullah and Hamas only”, Sultanov affirmed in an interview with the Islam.Ru website.