The head of the Lebanon-based Shiite militant group Hezbollah has threatened European Union member Cyprus with war if it allows Israeli military operations to be launched from its territory. The threat was made in a televised address on Wednesday, June 19th, the Greek daily eKathimerini reported.
In the video, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned the Mediterranean island nation that allowing the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to use its military infrastructure or conduct strikes against targets in Lebanon would be considered an act of war by Nicosia.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah added that Hezbollah has already prepared “a bank of targets” for precision strikes in Cyprus and other, unspecified parts of the Mediterranean, saying that “there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones” in the event of a broader conflict.
The Iran-backed militants have relentlessly targeted northern Israel with frequent missile fire for the past eight months to maintain a parallel front with the Hamas-initiated conflict in Gaza. But threatening Cyprus, an EU member state, is a first.
In recent years, Israel has discussed increased defense cooperation with Nicosia, but no concrete deal about using Cypriot military infrastructure was made public. The two countries have been known only to conduct joint military exercises and engage in shared arms procurement projects.
Being just 250 km away from the Lebanese coastline, the island had been used for launching British operations in Syria (and more recently, Yemen), but those involved the two military bases that belong to the UK, and not the country of Cyprus itself.
“Cyprus remains uninvolved in any military conflicts and positions itself as part of the solution rather than the problem,” Cypriot president Nikos Christodoulides said on Wednesday, in response to Hezbollah’s threats.
Last week the militant group launched its largest volley of missiles and drones since the current conflict began, leading Israeli officials to warn that there is a high risk of an imminent upsurge in regional conflict.
“Hezbollah’s increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation, one that could have devastating consequences for Lebanon and the entire region,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a video statement on Monday.
Cyprus is not a member of NATO, and it’s unclear how the EU would respond in case the conflict spills over to a European country.
It’s no secret that while condemning acts of terror, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has always seemed more sympathetic to the Palestinian side in the current conflict—which could hamper an effective response from Brussels, At the time of writing, neither Borrell nor the EU’s foreign policy service (EEAS) has responded.
In an even more cryptic message during Wednesday’s address, Nasrallah also warned without elaborating that Israel “knows that what also awaits in the Mediterranean is very big.”
The Hezbollah chief may have been referring to striking warships of the Israeli navy, which was already attempted back in 2006. According to analysts, Hezbollah had acquired Russian-made anti-ship Yakhont missiles from Syria after it deployed its forces a decade ago in the Syrian civil war, in support of Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Hezbollah also seems to be engaged in ‘hybrid warfare’ to destabilize Cyprus. In another video message last month, Nasrallah encouraged the 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon to leave the country and sail to Cyprus—deepening of the country’s already dire migration crisis.
According to local media reports, Wednesday’s address triggered mass cancellation of hotel bookings in Cyprus, which in itself might become a huge blow to the country’s heavily tourism-focused economy at the height of the season.
