TEHRAN - Retired Major General Israel Ziv, the former chief of the Operations Division of the Israeli occupation army, has said that Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah should not be underestimated because he is "a very smart person." 

Ziv told Israeli Channel 12 that Nasrallah is aware that "what is happening in Israel affirms his spider web theory," which he spoke about after the liberation of southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation in 2000.

"He reads our newspapers every morning, follows our news, and perhaps watches us while we speak on television, and understands and sees Israel's erosion, collapse, and the division within it," the retired general stressed.

He added that Nasrallah is well aware that he does not need to engage in provocations to start a war with Israel. "He will not give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ladder to descend from the tree to unite the Israelis against him again."

Moreover, he said, Nasrallah is engaging in provocations to insult the government and humiliate Israel and thereby showing its weakness, according to almayadeen.net.

Ziv expressed his belief that "Israel will see a lot of this, and will then face a dilemma." He added that Israel is in a critical situation because any move could lead to "escalations with a politically tied hand."