Hezbollah says Lebanon to get Iran fuel

BEIRUT — The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said Thursday that an Iranian fuel tanker will sail toward Lebanon “within hours,” warning Israel and the U.S. not to intercept it.

The delivery, organized by the Iran-backed Hezbollah, would violate U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran after former President Donald Trump pulled America out of a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers three years ago.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech that the tanker, carrying diesel fuel, will be followed by others to help ease Lebanon’s crippling fuel shortage that has paralyzed the country for weeks.

Lebanon is going through an unprecedented economic meltdown, including a severe fuel crisis.

Hours after Nasrallah’s comments, Lebanese President Michel Aoun’s office announced that the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, told him that the U.S. would help Lebanon get electricity from Jordan and facilitate the flow of Egyptian gas through Jordan and Syria to northern Lebanon.

Shea told Aoun that negotiations are ongoing with the World Bank to pay for Egyptian gas and to repair cables and pipelines that will be used, according to the statement.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. State Department or the American Embassy in Beirut.

In his speech, Nasrallah did not say how Lebanon would pay for the fuel. Earlier, he had said Tehran could be paid in Lebanese pounds. The currency has lost more than 90% of its value since the country’s economic crisis began in October 2019.

“I would like to say that at the moment the tanker sails out … it will be considered in Lebanese territory,” Nasrallah said and blamed the West for what he called an undeclared siege of Lebanon that triggered the current crisis.