The leader of Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, emerged Thursday night from hiding to deny that the command structure of his group had been damaged by an Israeli attack earlier in the day.

Speaking on the Arab satellite television station al-Jazeera, the Hizbollah leader said that a massive Israeli strike on one of Beirut’s southern suburbs, using more than 20 tons of explosives, had not hit its intended target. “I can confirm, without exaggerating or using psychological warfare, that we have not been harmed,” he said.