"The Israel Defense Force will continue and intensify its covert and overt efforts to thwart Hezbollah's desire to undermine Israel's security," GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Amir Baram said Tuesday.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the 13th anniversary of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Baram noted that "the stable security reality that we have established in the sector in the 13 years since the war is proof of our deterrence. … If we are forced into war, we will exact a heavy price from Hezbollah and its patrons, wherever necessary."
Still, he warned that "Hezbollah continues to grow stronger and establish its forces over the [Israel-Lebanon] border, but Operation Defensive Shield has dealt it a significant blow," he said, referring to the IDF's successful destruction of a grid of cross-border terror tunnels dug by the Shiite terrorist group.
Despite wielding considerable political power in Lebanon, the Iranian-backed terrorist group's allegiances lie with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and not with the Lebanese people, he continued, warning that "as a result, Lebanon may pay a heavy price for its collaboration with Shiite terrorism."
"Hezbollah continued to establish its presence in southern Lebanon in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 [that ended the Second Lebanon War of 2006] and it is setting up terrorist infrastructure with the aim of threatening us. Hezbollah must understand that we will not allow it to realize the destructive ambitions of its Iranian patrons or any similar ambitions it may harbor itself," Baram stated.
"The IDF can be proud of its superiority in the sector and in the quality of its commanders and soldiers," he said.
Last week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently threatened Israel with precision missiles, saying that any Israeli provocation in Lebanon would be met with "powerful retaliation."
Israeli Military Intelligence believes the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group has an arsenal of some 150,000 missiles, threatening the length and breadth of Israel.
Director of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Tamir Heyman dismissed the threat, saying that the IDF knows about all of Hezbollah's capabilities, "maybe even better than Nasrallah himself," adding that some of the weapons with which Nasrallah threatened Israel are not even operational.
Commenting on the military's intelligence-gathering efforts collection, Heyman noted that "the vast majority of our intelligence today comes from cyber … and we are only limited by our imagination."
