Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called the attacks on the group “unprecedented” but vowed it will not bring them down. 

“There is no doubt that we have suffered a major blow,” he said in his Thursday speech, “both in terms of security and humanity, an unprecedented one in the history of the resistance in Lebanon at least, unprecedented in the history of Lebanon, and it may be unprecedented in the history of the conflict with the Israeli enemy across the entire region, perhaps even unprecedented in the world.” 

“It is the nature of war. One day the enemy will hit us and the next we will hit the enemy,” he added, hinting at possible retaliation.  

“Reckoning will come”: Nasrallah added that the “reckoning will come” following the attacks, and said the group was calling them the “Tuesday and Wednesday massacres.” 

He accused Israel of intending to kill thousands of people holding the pagers. 

“Over the course of two days, and in a single minute on Tuesday and in a single minute on Wednesday, the Israeli enemy intended to kill not less than 5,000 people in two minutes and with no consideration for any restraint,” he said. 

He said this would have amounted to “a mass terrorist event, a mass genocide, a massacre.”

He went on to call it a “massive aggression against Lebanon, its people, its resistance, its sovereignty, and its security, war crimes, or a declaration of war — you can call it anything, and you would be right to call it what you want. Of course this was the (scenario) the enemy intended to do.” 

Nasrallah added that the outcome was far less bloody than it could have been.