Netanyahu: If Hezbollah ‘Dares’ to Attack, Israel Will Respond ‘With Crushing Military Blow’

PM Netanyahu in the north of Israel. Illustrative.
Photo courtesy of Haim Zach / Israeli GPO.

Israel will unleash a devastating counterattack if Hezbollah were to attack from Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday, in response to the latest threats from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “Over the weekend we heard Nasrallah’s remarks on his attack plans. It should be clear that if Hezbollah dares to do some nonsense and attacks Israel, we will hit him and Lebanon with a crushing military blow,” said Netayahu in comments released by his office.

The counter-threat came after Hezbollah Secretary General Nasrallah said in an interview with Al-Manar that another war with Israel would put the Jewish state “on the verge of vanishing.” To prove his point, Nasrallah boasted that they had weapons capable of reaching up and down the Israeli coastline and targeting Israel’s international airport, seaports and petrochemical plants. He claimed Hezbollah had precision missiles and drones, while staying evasive on whether or not they had anti-aircraft missiles.

Netanyahu mocked Nasrallah’s specificity, stating, “I do not intend to detail our plans.” Instead, he simply pointed to how they foiled the plot to build terror tunnels into Israel. “It is enough to recall that Nasrallah had—for years—dug terrorist tunnels, which we destroyed within days.”

The strong words came as the region is experiencing extreme tension between the United States—which is a close ally of Israel—and Iran, which is aligned with Hezbollah. Nasrallah touched on that conflict as well, claiming that if the US attacked Iranian targets, Iran would respond by striking American ones.

He also specifically listed US allies in the Saudis, the United Arab Emirates and Israel as being at risk if they participate in an Iran-US war. Nasrallah implied that Hezbollah would get involved as well.

It has been long believed that Iran would attack Israel in response to an American attack on Iranian targets, and the latest threats from Nasrallah may have been part of the public relations psychological war in the current conflict. Iran has already recently downed an American drone and attacked multiple oil tankers in an effort to respond to US sanctions and what they deem a failure of the Europeans to mitigate their economic woes.

On Sunday, Israel’s rhetoric wasn’t just aimed at Hezbollah. In regards to Iran, Netanyahu said in additional comments released by his office, “The only thing that the awful nuclear agreement gave is our strong and ongoing rapprochement with the main Arab countries. Iran tells them in a straightforward manner—’We will destroy you and we will destroy you, first of all, with nuclear weapons.’”

Netanyahu said he warned the nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers would not only “pave their way to a nuclear arsenal” but also give Iran hundreds of billions of dollars to use in their efforts to build an empire.

“Today you can judge if we were right or not,” said Netanyahu. “Then first of all this must be blocked. At the moment, the only military in the world that is confronting Iran—is the Israeli military.”

(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, July 14, 2019)

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