IDF spokesman: Israeli troops ‘are not going to Beirut,’ we’ll make ground op ‘as short as we can’

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says that IDF troops will not be entering Beirut or any major cities in Lebanon, and says Israel’s ground operation in its northern neighbor will be as brief as possible.

Speaking in English after a similar briefing in Hebrew to reporters, Hagari says that Israeli forces “are not going to Beirut. We’re not going to the cities in southern Lebanon. We are focusing in the area of those villages, the area next to our border. We will do in this area what is necessary to dismantle and demolish Hezbollah’s infrastructure.”

Asked how long the ground operations are likely to continue, Hagari says that “I will not reveal to the enemy, but we are doing it as short as we can, days, weeks… We will do the necessary thing, the limited and local operation that we are conducting now.”

Hagari says that “in order to enable all 60,000 Israelis to safely return back to their homes in northern Israel, the IDF is taking action,” and has already been carrying out limited cross-border excursions for a period of many months.

“Our soldiers entered Hezbollah’s underground infrastructures, exposed Hezbollah’s hidden weapon caches, and seized and destroyed the weapons — including advanced Iranian-made weapons. Overall, IDF soldiers exposed and dismantled over 700 Hezbollah terror assets during these operations, and there’s a lot more work to do,” says Hagari.

The IDF spokesman says that “Hezbollah has built, prepared and equipped this infrastructure over many years in preparation for the day that it would carry out an invasion into northern Israel,” a plan similar to Hamas’s October 7 massacre.