From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
IDF northern commander: We are ‘more prepared than we’ve ever been’ for escalation with Hezbollah
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleEmanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The chief of the IDF’s Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, says the military is “more prepared than we’ve ever been, for tonight if we have to,” to address a potential further escalation in violence on the Lebanese border.
“We will continue and strengthen the readiness and assessments going forward,” Gordin says yesterday during a drill carried out by the 228th Reserve Brigade, simulating an offensive in Lebanon.
“On October 7 we went to war, a war for our home. You all showed up long before we called you for this defense mission. Even now, tens of thousands of soldiers are deployed to defend the northern border with Lebanon. We hit a lot of squads on the other side, more than 150 squads hit and a lot of capabilities removed,” he says.
Gordin says the IDF is working to “strip away Hezbollah’s capabilities and push it back” from the border.
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 Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group there.
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