During a televised speech Feb. 16, on the occasion of the Commemoration of the Martyr Leaders, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah focused noticeably on the Palestinian issue and hostility toward Israel. Nasrallah allocated nearly a quarter of the speech, which lasted more than two hours, to this topic.

The Hezbollah leader remarked that some people might be surprised that he would be talking about the Palestinian cause and the Israeli threat to Palestine, Lebanon and the region when the world is focused elsewhere, that is, on the situation the Arab world finds itself in today. According to Nasrallah, this is the very situation "that the US and Israel wanted the people of the region, its regimes and states to reach, after all of the victories and achievements made by the resistance, from Palestine to Lebanon, Syria and Iran."

He continued, asserting that there are those who "do not want Palestine and the struggle with the Israeli enemy to be among [our] priorities. They want it to be outside the sphere of concern. They even want [this issue] to be removed from [peoples'] minds, hearts and emotions. They want us to reach the stage in which if you mention 'Palestine', people will respond: 'To hell with you and Palestine!'"

Nasrallah's speech came at a time when a number of Palestinians in Lebanon have been implicated in suicide bombings targeting Shiite areas that support Hezbollah, such as the southern suburbs of Beirut and the town of Hermel, in the Bekaa Valley. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades has been recruiting suicide bombers among Palestinians living in al-Bisaria, a predominantly Shiite village in south Lebanon. This has resulted in animosity toward Palestinians in Lebanon in general, and toward those residing in al-Bisaria in particular. There have been claims that some of those who planned and carried out the attacks are living in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp.