PM: We’ll ‘crush’ Lebanon if Hezbollah attacks us
Israel will inflict a “crushing” military blow on Hezbollah and Lebanon if Hezbollah dares to strike Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu’s comments came after Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, gave an interview on Friday on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV to mark the 13th anniversary of the Second Lebanon War. Nasrallah said that “Any war will be bigger than the 2006 war for Israel, and it will put it on the brink of extinction.”
Netanyahu called Nasrallah’s comments “boastful words,” and asserted that if Hezbollah “dared to do something foolish and attack Israel, we would impose a crushing military blow on it and on Lebanon.”
Unlike Nasrallah, who bragged of “game-changing offensive weapons” and surprises by ground, sea and air, Netanyahu said “I do not intend to elaborate on our plans.”
“Suffice it to say that for years Nasrallah dug terror tunnels, which we destroyed within days,” he said.
Since December, the IDF has been uncovering and destroying a network of terror tunnels from Lebanon into Israel, which were constructed for Hezbollah terrorists attempting to penetrate Israel.
Netanyahu’s comments on Sunday came just five days after his response to an Iranian official who threatened last week that Israel would be destroyed within 30 minutes if the US attacked the Islamic Republic.
“Iran has threatened recently to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video clip he posted, standing in front of an F-35 Adir plane at the Nevatim Air Force base. “It is worthwhile for them to remember that these planes can reach everywhere in the Middle East, including Iran and Syria.”