Netanyahu huddles with security chiefs after vowing to ‘continue to hit Hezbollah’
Around 300 rockets fired at northern Israel, with drones reaching deepest targets so far; Gallant says IDF has ‘additional blows already prepared’ for Lebanese terror group
As Israel carried out major waves of airstrikes against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon and rocket fire targeted communities deep in northern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu huddled with security chiefs Tuesday evening to discuss the next stages of fighting.
Netanyahu met with IDF chief Herzi Halevi as well as his military secretary, Roman Goffman, and his chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, according to his office. He was reportedly slated to meet later in the night with a number of senior ministers and other security officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Shas chief Aryeh Deri.
The prime minister earlier in the day publicly urged the Lebanese people to reject Hezbollah, while Gallant warned that the terror group had yet to see the IDF’s full capabilities.
Israel will “continue to hit Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said during a visit to an IDF intelligence base.
Addressing the people of Lebanon, he stressed that “our war is not with you, our war is with Hezbollah.”
“[Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah is leading you to the brink of the abyss,” he said. “I told you yesterday to evacuate the houses where he put a missile in the living room and a rocket in the garage. Those who have a missile in their living room and a rocket in their garage will not have a home.”
Netanyahu added that Nasrallah is putting Lebanon in danger: “Free yourself from the grip of Hezbollah; free yourself from Nasrallah’s grip, for your own good.”
The IDF said in the evening that close to 300 rockets had been fired at northern Israel during the day, repeatedly setting off sirens in Haifa and Safed and across many towns and communities in the Galilee and the Jezreel Valley. Many of the rockets were intercepted or fell in open areas. However, there were several impacts that damaged homes and property and at least two people were injured by shrapnel.
A home in the town of Rosh Pina in the Upper Galilee suffered a direct hit from a Hezbollah rocket, but the family of four emerged physically unscathed after taking shelter in their reinforced room. The terror group also launched drones at the Mount Carmel region and the Israeli Navy’s Atlit base, the deepest drone attacks of the war so far.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Hezbollah planned to launch even more rockets toward Israel on Tuesday, but was foiled by IDF strikes on the group’s infrastructure.
“We are foiling, striking, and disrupting its attacks,” he said. “I won’t go into detail about the data on the Hezbollah capabilities [that the IDF has destroyed]. We have [this data], we are studying it. I will not detail it, to not endanger our intelligence and not to give the enemy clarity.”
The IDF spokesman said that despite Israel’s accomplishments, “Hezbollah still has more capabilities of different kinds. Our job is to take care of each of them, but first of all, we are focusing on its strategic capabilities that pose a greater risk to the Israeli home front.”
Israel carried out several waves of intensive airstrikes across Lebanon on Tuesday, including a targeted strike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah’s rocket and missile division chief Ibrahim Qubaisi and several other Hezbollah commanders.
The IDF said it has hit more than 1,500 Hezbollah targets in some 200 different areas of Lebanon since Monday morning, mostly targeting homes where Hezbollah had stored munitions. Lebanese officials said at least 569 people were killed on Monday, and at least another six on Tuesday, without differentiating between civilians and combatants.
Speaking to troops at a drill simulating a ground offensive in Lebanon, Gallant said Tuesday that the IDF has “additional blows already prepared” for Hezbollah.
“Today’s Hezbollah is not the Hezbollah of a week ago. The sequence of blows it faced in its command and control, its operatives, its weapons, all these things are extremely severe blows,” he told troops of the 7th Armored Brigade and 202nd Paratroopers Battalion.
“We have more blows ready, we know what to do,” he said. “Any Hezbollah force that encounters you will be destroyed, they are troubled by the experience you have gained in combat,” Gallant told the soldiers, who previously fought against Hamas in Gaza.
Tuesday’s drill was the latest in a series carried out by the IDF for a potential ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Senior defense officials reportedly told security cabinet ministers on Monday that the IDF will not hesitate to use any means necessary to fulfill the government goal of enabling the safe return homes of tens of thousands of displaced residents of the north.
The comments, reported by Channel 12 news on Tuesday, appeared to underline the assessment that Israel wants to avoid a full-scale war with Hezbollah, but has not ruled it out if there is no other means to restore calm to the border.
According to the TV report, ministers were told by the security chiefs in their meeting on Monday: “The strategy [being followed by the IDF in Lebanon] is to change the balance of power in the north. The goal is twofold: to strengthen deterrence against Hezbollah and return the residents of the north safety to their homes, while deterring the entire Iranian axis and first of all Iran itself.”
“We are continuing with the incremental strategy,” the security chiefs reportedly said. “Each time, we move up one stage and then another stage, and as the days go by, Hezbollah will increasingly internalize the IDF’s power.”
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the start of the war in Gaza in October, but largely avoided escalating into an all-out war, despite more than 40 deaths in Israel and the killing of hundreds of Hezbollah operatives and dozens of civilians in Lebanon.
The coordinated explosions last week of hundreds of Hezbollah communication devices — an operation widely attributed to Israel — which killed 39 people and wounded thousands marked a dramatic escalation in fighting, with the IDF on Friday also killing the group’s elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, in an airstrike on Beirut.
