In a February 16, 2016, speech, aired on Al-Manar TV, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah threatened the Israeli ammonia storage facilities in Haifa. He quoted an Israeli expert, saying that a missile attack on the ammonia tanks would have the impact of a nuclear bomb. Nasrallah said that this means that Lebanon has a nuclear bomb, “this is no exaggeration.” He added that such an attack on the Haifa ammonia facilities would potentially cause tens of thousands of deaths. On February 16, 2017, Nasrallah said in a speech, aired on Mayadeen TV that Israel had decided to remove the ammonia tanks from Haifa due to Hizbullah’s threats. He claimed that the people of Haifa had to thank Hizbullah for this. Nassrallah added that even after the storage facility would be removed from Haifa, Hizbullah would still be able to reach the ammonia facility in its new location as well as the Dimona nuclear plant. Nasrallah said that while an attack on the ammonia storage tanks would be the equivalent of a nuclear attack, an attack on a ship supplying ammonia to Israel would be like five nuclear bombs.
