An IDF battalion commander stationed on Israel’s border with Lebanon on Wednesday said the Hezbollah terror group’s recent activity was “reminiscent of what they did before the Second Lebanon War”.
In an interview with Channel 2, Lt. Col. Eliav Elbaz described how Hezbollah was “obsessively” monitoring Israeli soldiers from across the border.
Elbaz said: “The other side is obsessively gathering [information] about everything happening here, everything our security forces [are doing]”. He added: “Right now they’re up to their necks in the war in Syria, but we still see them walking around”, scouting the Israeli positions.
The IDF officer said Israeli soldiers were training constantly and on high alert: “We are preparing for war. In the event of a war, they will have a lot more to lose”.
In the summer of 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in Lebanon that killed about 160 Israelis, and nearly 1,200 Lebanese, including several hundred Hezbollah fighters. The two-front war lasted for more than a month, with Israeli air strikes targeting Hezbollah terrorists embedded in Lebanese neighbourhoods, and 4,000 Hezbollah missiles launched deep into Israel, killing 44 Israeli civilians.
In recent months, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened Israel with war. In March, Nasrallah warned that the terror organisation was ready to strike anywhere in Israel with “no limits”, including chemical and nuclear facilities: “We can strike any target we want inside occupied Palestine”.
In February, the Hezbollah leader issued explicit threats towards Israel, boasting that the Lebanese terror group could defeat the Jewish state in a future conflict by targeting the city of Haifa’s ammonia storage tanks, resulting in mass Israeli fatalities. In January 2015, Nasrallah said that his organisation “have made all necessary preparations for a future war with Israel”, in an interview aired on Lebanese TV.
Hezbollah forces are currently deeply engaged in supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, providing thousands of fighters over three and a half years, of which 1,500 have reportedly been killed.
