Hezbollah chief makes rare public appearance

“We have the heads, the hands, the feet and even a nearly intact cadaver from the head down to the pelvis,” he said in a live video broadcast that followed his surprise appearance in his stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut to commemorate Ashura, Shiite Islam’s holiest day.

“What did the Israeli army say to the family of this soldier and what remains did they give them?” he asked.

Speaking about his group’s war with the Jewish state in 2006, he claimed Hezbollah had forced Israel to beat a quick retreat and warned that his group stood ready for a new conflict. “If Israel launches a new war against Lebanon, we promise them a war that will change the face of the entire region,” he said.

Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in July 2006 led to the 34-day war that killed more than 1,200 civilians in Lebanon, a third of them children, as well as 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.