IDF chief praises civilian home front’s resilience in visit with troops

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir visited an air defense battalion today, telling troops that the home front’s resilience “gives us endurance” amid the ongoing conflict with Iran.

“Our civilian home front is very strong. It is resilient; it gives us backing, it gives us endurance. The people of the country understand what we are fighting for, and in that sense, the resilience of the home front is a very central component in this campaign,” Zamir says to soldiers of the 947th Air Defense Battalion, which operates the short-range Iron Dome system.

Zamir says that the IDF is “operating in two arenas simultaneously.”

“We are operating in Iran, and we are operating against Hezbollah in Lebanon. These are two major enemies of ours, and they have much in common. It is one axis, the Shiite axis, the Iranian axis, with all its proxies, and at this very moment, we are acting to remove threats from the citizens of the State of Israel,” he says. Hezbollah is backed by Iran.

“Our fighter jets are bombing over the skies of Tehran. We are hunting launchers there; some of the launchers you are supposed to deal with, we are now hunting them with UAVs and fighter jets in order to reduce the threats to our home front,” Zamir says.

He says that “Hezbollah made a very serious mistake” by attacking Israel and joining the conflict. “We prepared for this, and now we are striking it with very great force. We are determined to remove this Hezbollah threat, and we will not stop until this organization is disarmed.”