Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, delivers a televised speech broadcast live on the local Arabic-language al-Manar television network from the Lebanese capital Beirut, on August 20, 2020.

The secretary general of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement has called Israel the greatest threat to peace and security in the Middle East region, warning against mischievous plots being hatched by the Tel Aviv regime.

The principal threat nowadays in our region is the existence of the occupying Zionist regime, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech broadcast live on the local Arabic-language al-Manar television network from the Lebanese capital Beirut late on Thursday.

If one wants to confront the Israeli enemy, they must know the history of Palestine. We must know who these invaders are, where they came from, and what their goals, strengths and weaknesses are, he added.

The Hezbollah chief further noted that the United States was established through mass murder of Native Americans, dismissing reliance on the US administration to reclaim rights from the Israeli regime as pointless because they both have the same terrorist nature.

Today, the United States represents the toughest challenge to world nations and the greatest threat to international peace and security. The US is a racist and savage state, which has been established on unjust foundations and racial discrimination. It hides behind fake news as well as fraudulent and misleading policies, Nasrallah highlighted.

Nasrallah denounced attempts by a number of Arab states to normalize full diplomatic relations with the Israeli regime, stating that authorities in such countries have accepted subservient roles in the face of their US counterparts.

The normalization agreements and the blockade are all means of pressures to force the Palestinian nation into surrendering all their rights, he said.

Hours after Nasrallah’s speech, Israeli war planes struck the positions of Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip early on Friday morning.

The Israeli military claimed in a statement that the attack was carried out in response to incendiary balloons launched from the besieged coastal enclave into the occupied territories. There were no immediate reports of casualties on both sides.

Israel has carried out airstrikes and used artillery against sites inside the Gaza Strip for the past few days.

Israel also slashed Gaza’s permitted fishing zone last week in response to the alleged balloon attacks, halving the area from 15 nautical miles to eight.

The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli land, air and sea blockade since June 2007, after Hamas, which has vowed to resist the Israeli occupation, rose to power in the enclave, where two million people live.

Since imposing the siege, it has also brought Gaza under three wholesale wars, killing thousands of Palestinians in each.

The crippling Gaza blockade has caused a sharp decline in the standard of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty in the besieged strip.