Gallant: Hezbollah could cost Lebanese dearly, ‘they can’t imagine what might happen’
IDF chief says Israel able to launch swift response anywhere in the region amid threats of attack from Iran, proxies
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday warned Lebanon of the steep price it would pay if Hezbollah makes do on threats to retaliate forcefully against Israel for the killing of a senior commander in the terror group.
“As things stand, [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah may drag Lebanon into paying extremely heavy prices. They can’t even imagine what might happen,” Gallant said during a visit to troops of the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade.
“This may also deteriorate into a war. It’s not theoretical, it’s real,” he added, according to a statement from his office.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israelis to remain calm as Jerusalem braced for a potentially separate attack from Iran for the assassination of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
“We are continuing forward to victory. I know that Israeli citizens are on alert, and I ask you one thing — stay calm and composed,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the Tel Hashomer army recruitment base, where he met draftees to the IDF’s Armored Corps and Combat Engineering Corps.
“We are prepared for both defense and offense, we are striking our enemies and are also determined to defend ourselves,” he told troops, according to a statement from his office.
Netanyahu expressed his pride in the soldiers, both those in the reserves and in the standing army, calling them the “backbone of the nation.”
Speaking to Israeli Air Force personnel at the Tel Nof airbase, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Israel is on high alert and will be able to launch a quick response to any attack.
“We will know how to launch a very quick attack anywhere in Lebanon, anywhere in Gaza, anywhere in the Middle East, aboveground and belowground,” Halevi said.
“We will send a very clear message to our enemies, those who attack us, those who in every speech talk about how they seek to destroy the State of Israel. We will strike them, and we will continue to grow stronger,” he added.
Turning to Hamas’s Gaza leader, who was promoted to head of the terror group’s politburo after the assassination of Haniyeh, Halevi asserted that Yahya Sinwar’s new title wouldn’t prevent Israel from hunting him down.
“Yahya Sinwar yesterday received a new title, he is the head of the political bureau of Hamas. This title, a political one, will not absolve him from the fact that he is a murderer who was involved in the entire planning and execution of what happened on October 7,” the IDF chief said.
“Therefore, the change in his name, not only does not prevent us from
looking for him, it spurs us on and we will make an effort to find him,
attack him, and [cause Hamas to] replace the head of the political
bureau once more,” he said.
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