Herzog: Hezbollah chiefs were meeting to plan Oct. 7-style invasion when killed
President confirms terror group commanders slain in Friday’s IDF strike were set on ‘horrendous’ rampage in north; Lebanese source: They were meeting on ‘plans for ground invasion’
President Isaac Herzog said on Sunday that a Beirut gathering last week of top Hezbollah commanders that was bombed by Israel was convened to plan an attack on Israel like the devastating October 7 assault by Palestinian terror group Hamas.
His assertion matched media reports about the meeting and came the day after the Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it eliminated many of the top commanders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in a Friday airstrike that collapsed the building where the meeting was being held.
During an interview with the UK’s Sky News broadcaster, Herzog held up an IDF infographic showing some of the most senior Hezbollah leaders killed in the strike.
“All of these leaders were meeting to launch the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on October 7 by Hamas, by burning Israelis, butchering them, raping their women, taking hostages, old people, and little babies,” Herzog said.
Hezbollah had been planning a similar attack for years under “the empire of evil of Iran,” Herzog said.
The US-based Al-Monitor outlet cited a source close to Hezbollah as also saying the meeting had been called to work on the longstanding plan for a major invasion of the northern Galilee region, to be launched in the wake of a pair of unprecedented attacks last week in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. That attack was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
The members of the elite Radwan Force were studying “plans for a ground invasion at the heart of the occupied territories,” the source told Al-Monitor. (Hezbollah seeks to destroy Israel and sees all of its sovereign territory as “occupied.”)
IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told media on Friday that the Beirut meeting participants “met to coordinate terror activities against Israeli civilians” with an “attack into the northern territory of the State of Israel — what they called ‘The plan to conquer the Galilee.’”
In this planned invasion, “Hezbollah intended to raid Israeli territory, occupy the communities of the Galilee, and murder and kidnap Israeli citizens — similar to what Hamas did on October 7,” Hagari said.
The IDF confirmed Saturday that it had eliminated many of the top commanders of the Radwan Force, which has spearheaded Hezbollah’s ground operations in south Lebanon, in the Friday strike. Among them was Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollah’s military operations and acting commander of the Radwan Force, who it said was the overseer of the invasion plan.
Herzog: We absolutely did not seek this war
Herzog spoke to Sky News amid a surge in violence over the weekend in the conflict with Hezbollah that started as a result of the war in the Gaza Strip.
War in Gaza erupted on October 7 when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive cross-border raid on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The 3,000 terrorists who burst into the country rampaged murderously through the south, overrunning communities and army bases amid numerous atrocities including massacres of entire families as they huddled in their homes, 361 people slaughtered at a music festival, and widespread sexual violence, including gang rapes. Terrorists also took 251 people of all ages as hostages to Gaza.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
The fighting ramped up over the weekend as Hezbollah responded to the slaying of its commanders in Beirut with heavy barrages of rockets at northern Israel while the IDF hammered hundreds of the terror group’s launchers in airstrikes.
Asked about the risk of causing an all-out regional war by the escalation in the conflict, Herzog agreed that “it is clearly a very dangerous situation.”
But, he stressed, “Hezbollah started this war following the horrendous of Hamas on October 7.”
The terror group, he continued, has been “bombarding us endlessly” and nearly 100,000 residents of Israel’s north have been forced to leave their homes.
Until now Israel showed restraint “but something has to end,” Herzog said.
Returning the displaced residents to their homes “is the natural obligation of any nation to its citizens.”
Herzog said Israel has a “simple message. We don’t want war. We absolutely did not seek this war. This war was instigated by the empire of evil, by the Iranian proxies in the region, under the command of Iran.”
He noted that the country has come under attack not only by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also by Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, and other proxies in Iraq.
“Israel is fighting for its well-being, for its existence, its citizens.”
“We are working to change the equation,” he said and stressed that Israel needs to ensure that there cannot be a repeat of October 7 from Gaza “and that this attack does not reoccur again from Lebanon.”
“In order to change the equation, one has to fight,” he said.
The president leveled criticism at some of Israel’s traditional allies who have reprimanded the country over its military action in Gaza, including Britain, which earlier this month suspended dozens of arms export licenses citing concerns the equipment might be used for human rights violations.
Describing relations with the British government and people as “outstanding” Herzog said, “But we expect friends and allies to be there for us all the time as we are for them. There is a sense of disappointment in Israel.”
Asked about civilian casualties from the pager explosions, Herzog refused to confirm Israel was behind the attack but noted that a Hezbollah rocket had killed 12 Israeli Druze children in Majdal Shams.
“There are terrible tragedies in this war, and we never want to get there but we have the inherent right to defend ourselves,” he said. “We have to take action like any normal nation would do in order to defend its people.”
So far, the skirmishes with Hezbollah have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 503 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 79 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
