‘Boring speech, hiding in bunker like a coward’: Israel’s barb at Hezbollah leader

The Israeli government on Friday (local time) described Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s speech as “boring” and “long and rambling” after the latter took a jibe at the Jewish nation.

When it was attacked by the Palestinian terror group Hamas on October 7. Government spokesperson Eylon Levy hit back at Nasrallah, saying he “was hiding in a bunker like a coward”.

“We listened to Hassan Nasrallah’s long and rambling speech. I admit it was so boring that I don’t know whether his speechwriter was killed in recent IDF (Israel Defence Forces) strikes on Hezbollah up in the north,” Levy was quoted by The Times of Israel as saying.

“I would note that despite the large crowds, Nasrallah himself was not on stage. He was hiding in a bunker like a coward. If I were giving an hour-long speech defending the paedophile rapists of Hamas, I would be afraid to show my face in public as well,” he said.

In his lengthy virtual address, Nasrallah praised the Hamas attack four weeks ago in which the terrorists attacked farming villages, towns and military posts in southern Israel. More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel in the attack.

“This great, large-scale operation was purely the result of Palestinian planning and implementation,” Nasrallah said, suggesting his militia had no part in the attack. “The great secrecy made this operation greatly successful.”

He also said that October 7 had come as “proof that Israel is weaker than a spider’s web” and that one month into the war, it “had not been able to make any achievements”.

Nasrallah also criticised the strong US backing of Israel in its bombardment of Gaza, which has killed more than 9,000 people, mostly civilians. The US is now calling for a ‘humanitarian pause’ in the war.

Nasrallah’s speech had been widely anticipated throughout the region as a sign of whether the Israel-Hamas conflict would spiral into a regional war.

Hamas leaders have been pushing — sometimes publicly — for its ally Hezbollah to widen its involvement in the war. Nasrallah met last week in Beirut with senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri and with Ziad Nakhaleh of the Palestinian-allied group Islamic Jihad.

Since the war began, Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have been engaging in border clashes.