The head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command issued a clear threat to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah and its Iranian patron on Monday, saying Israel’s next war with the terrorist group would be its last.
“[Hezbollah] will feel the force of our arm. I hope there won’t be another war, but if there is, it won’t be another Second Lebanon War, but the final northern war,” said Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick at a conference organized by the Hadashot TV news outlet.
Strick was referring to the 2006 conflict with the Shiite militia, which was marred by allegations of unpreparedness and mismanagement by the military and the country’s political leaders.
In his onstage interview, the Northern Command chief stressed that the Israel Defense Forces had dramatically improved in the 12 years since the war, with a more intensive training schedule, better weaponry, and improved intelligence capabilities.
“If [Hezbollah] knew what we know about them, they wouldn’t be speaking so confidently,” Strick said.
“In Hezbollah, they make statements from bunkers. We are aware of their economic situation and their capabilities,” he said, referring to the group’s leaders’ tactic of hiding underground for fear of Israeli airstrikes.
Strick acknowledged the threat posed by Hezbollah, as the Israeli home front is “not un-hittable,” but said that the IDF would respond to any rockets and missiles fired at Israel with “tons of precision weaponry aimed at Hezbollah.”
“Citizens of the State of Israel can remain calm and put their trust in the security establishment, which knows how to act determinedly, accurately, and even to use the most aggressive force possible,” he said.
The Northern Command chief also mocked Hezbollah’s Iranian sponsors as having more bark than bite, noting that it took three months before Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps retaliated for an Israeli strike against it earlier this year.
Iran is using a civilian airline to smuggle arms to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, Fox News reported Monday, citing Western intelligence officials who tracked two unscheduled flights in recent months.
According to the report, two flights operated by Qeshm Fars Air flights made trips from Tehran to Beirut, flying an irregular route. One Boeing 747 flight on July 9 made a stop in Damascus, Syria. The second flight on August 4, directly from Tehran to Beirut, but followed “a slightly irregular route north of Syria,” Fox said.
The intelligence officials told Fox the flights were believed to be carrying components for manufacturing precise weapons in Iranian factories inside Lebanon.
“The Iranians are trying to come up with new ways and routes to smuggle weapons from Iran to its allies in the Middle East, testing and defying the West’s abilities to track them down,” a regional intelligence officer told Fox.
Israel has made similar charges before, with Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon sending a letter to Security Council members in 2016, warning Iran was using civilian airlines to supply the terrorists.
Fox said Qeshm Fars Air flights is loosely affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Iran is Hezbollah’s chief patron, having helped set up the group in the early 1980s. Since then, Iran has supplied Hezbollah with a range of weapons and helped fund its social programs in southern Lebanon, and has used the group to carry out terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets.
Hezbollah has grown into the Israeli military’s primary threat in the region, with an arsenal of between 100,000 to 150,000 mortar shells, rockets, and missiles. According to Israeli and Western intelligence officials, Iran has been helping Hezbollah develop precision-guided missiles, with which the group has the capability to stage a more successful attack on Israel.
At Iran’s behest, Hezbollah has become deeply embroiled in the Syrian civil war, fighting in a Shiite alliance alongside Iranian forces, the Assad regime and Iraqi militias against primarily Sunni rebels.
The head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command issued a clear threat to Hezbollah and its Iranian patron on Monday, saying Israel’s next war with the terrorist group would be its last.
“[Hezbollah] will feel the force of our arm. I hope there won’t be another war, but if there is, it won’t be another Second Lebanon War, but the final northern war,” said Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick at a conference organized by the Hadashot TV news outlet.
Also Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “As for the threat from Iran, we are not limiting ourselves to Syria.”
On February 10, an Israeli attack helicopter shot down an Iranian drone that penetrated Israeli airspace and, simultaneously, Israeli fighter jets bombed the air base from which the unmanned aerial vehicle was being piloted. In the resulting clash with Syrian air defenses, an Israeli F-16 fighter jet was shot down.
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