IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot warned that the Hezbollah terror group is becoming an increasingly strong “military presence” during a period of extended quiet along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
“We know that despite the quiet, many challenges are waiting,” Eisenkot said Tuesday. “The Hezbollah terror organization is violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, it’s preserving its military presence in the area, holds weapons systems and is becoming more powerful in its military capabilities.”
“We will do everything required to protect Israel’s northern border and ensure that it is safe and quiet,” he stated.
Israel’s challenge, according to the military leader, “is to continue to preserve readiness, to deepen our knowledge about the enemy, to reduce their capabilities and to extend as much as possible the good security and civil reality that has endured for 11 years [since the 2006 Second Lebanon War] and serves the populations on both sides of the [Israel-Lebanon border] fence.”
Eizenkot also emphasized Israel’s “supremacy, in the quality of commanders and fighters and the abilities to achieve victory in wartime and to deliver a high and painful result to the enemy.”