Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday threatened to bomb Hezbollah and Lebanon "into the stone age," if the terror group "makes a mistake" and "starts a war against Israel."
During a visit to the IDF’s Northern Command, he said, “I hear our enemies boasting about weapons they are developing. For any such development, we have an even better response - by air, by sea and on land and through other means of attack and defense."
The defense minister was visiting the North within the framework of the two-week-long “Firm Hand” military exercise. During the visit, Minister Gallant held a situation assessment together with senior IDF officials.
Gallant reassured Israel's citizens that his visit and updates from the drill confirmed "that our troops are excellent.”
"We will know how to defend the citizens of Israel and how to strike our enemies with a decisive blow, heaven forbid, they initiate a war with us," he stated.
The defense minister's threat comes after a series of threats and counter threats between Israel and Hezbollah in May.
IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and IDF Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva had warned Hezbollah in May of a conflagration if it pushed Israel too far. More specifically, they had said that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah might get overconfident and misread Jerusalem’s situation and think he can gamble against it.Halevi said Hezbollah “thinks it understands how we think which can lead it to dare and challenge us in scenarios where we won’t go to war” in response.
This came one day after Haliva said that Nasrallah might miscalculate his understanding of Israel and accidentally drag both sides into a larger conflict.
Haliva referenced Hezbollah’s recent daring in carrying out a bombing at Megiddo inside Israel.
Some had viewed that Hezbollah move as showing it was ready to pressure the Jewish state more than in the past.In early April, Hezbollah also allowed certain Palestinian terror groups to fire rockets on Israel from areas it controls.All of this was in the context that generally, since the Syrian civil war mostly ended, Hezbollah has tried a variety of ways to show it is still in conflict with Israel.
The Jerusalem Post has witnessed that Nasrallah has increased the presence of Hezbollah operatives close to the Metullah border with Israel, even if in civilian clothes. Nasrallah has done this quietly, by erecting numerous new observation towers under the guise of the “Green without Borders” organization.
Hezbollah has initiated several clashes with IDF soldiers
Besides these quieter, but consistent moves, Hezbollah has also initiated several clashes with IDF soldiers along the border who were working on completing the fence or marking the border.
“You are not the ones threatening war, it is us who do so,” Nasrallah emphasized in his May speech. “And any such war will include all of Israel’s borders.” He further said that “any wrong action in Palestine, Syria or Iran could lead to a major war.”