Israel will prevent Iran from using cross-border tunnels from Lebanon as a “weapon of aggression” against it, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News on Thursday, two days after the Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Northern Shield to expose and neutralize terror tunnels dug by Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
The interview was held just hours after Netanyahu toured Israel’s northern border with reporters and diplomats. Excerpts were aired on Saturday.
“We are just preventing them from taking over the Middle East, they are trying to mask their campaign to get nuclear weapons; that has to be stopped,” he said.
Netanyahu stressed that the cross-border tunnels that Israel has discovered and is working to neutralize—dug from Lebanon into Israeli territory—underscore Iran’s efforts to target Israel before it acquires nuclear weapons.
“The second thing that they want to do is to use their proxies, principally Hezbollah, [as] the forward arm to attack Israel with the goal of destroying it,” he continued. “As part of that, Hezbollah is building terror tunnels under Israeli territory; we have known that for several years, [and] a few days ago we tore the mask off, uncovered the first tunnel, and we are going to uncover the rest and deprive Iran of this weapon of aggression.”
“I hope countries will take the U.S.’s lead on this. It [the U.S.] is bringing a resolution to the General Assembly … daring countries [to] stand up to the truth,” said Netanyahu.
The tunnels are reportedly designed to allow Hezbollah operatives to infiltrate Israel in the event of a war, thus overcoming the border barriers Israel has placed above ground. The military has not disclosed how many tunnels snake into Israeli territory from Lebanon or how long the operation is going to last. So far, it has been limited to Israeli territory.