Growing potential for Hezbollah clashes

(TIMES OF ISRAEL) – Israeli defence Minister Yoav Gallant said this week that the likelihood of an outbreak of violence with the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon was mounting, calling on United Nations peacekeepers to work to reduce the recently raised tensions.

Gallant made the comments during a closed-door meeting on Monday with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at UN headquarters in New York, his office said in a statement.

“The potential for a violent escalation on Israel’s northern border is growing, as a result of flagrant violations by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah,” Gallant said in remarks provided by his office in English. “The UN must act immediately.”

Gallant showed the UN chief the deployment of dozens of Hezbollah posts along the border, including a tent erected within Israeli territory, and increasing patrols and presence by terror group operatives in the area.

The recent Hezbollah actions are a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a month-long war in 2006 and bars armed groups aside from the official Lebanese military and UNIFIL from operating south of Lebanon’s Litani River.

Gallant told Guterres that “Israel will not tolerate increasing threats to the security of its citizens, and will act as required in their defence,” his office said.

According to Gallant’s office, the pair also discussed Iran, “with an emphasis on its nuclear ambitions and export of terrorism and weapons”.

“Minister Gallant emphasised the Lebanese case as an example of the consequences of Iranian entrenchment and support,” his office said.

In a Hebrew video statement after the meeting, Gallant said that Guterres committed to trying his best to ensure that UNIFIL will help reduce tensions.

“We know how to defend ourselves in any case but we are not interested in friction,” Gallant said.

Israeli envoy to the UN Gilad Erdan, who was also in the meeting, said the talks with Guterres were “very important”, with the UN Security Council set to vote this week on renewing UNIFIL’s mandate, “which is supposed to prevent a war between Israel and Lebanon”.

“What you stressed [to Guterres], that if UNIFIL does not receive all the powers to deal with what Hezbollah is doing on our northern border, Hezbollah may find itself bringing a heavy catastrophe on Lebanon … this is an important message of deterrence,” Erdan said.

Gallant was set to later brief envoys of members of the UN Security Council on matters related to Israeli defence ahead of the vote on the UNIFIL mandate, according to his office.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to threats of an escalation over the weekend from a Hamas leader, saying anyone carrying out terrorist activity “will pay the full price”.

Last week Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’s politburo, told a Lebanese news outlet that any Israeli targeted killings of the terror group’s leaders would spark a “regional war”.

At the outset of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said that he “heard the verbiage by the senior Hamas official Arouri, from his hiding place in Lebanon”.

“He knows very well why he and his colleagues are in hiding. Hamas, and the other Iranian proxies understand very well that we will fight with all means against their attempts to use terrorism against us – in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and everywhere else,” Netanyahu said. “Whoever tries to hurt us, whoever finances and organises, whoever dispatches terrorists against Israel, will pay the full price.”

Al-Arouri, who is himself wanted by Israel for allegedly masterminding the 2014 kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens, further charged that far-right members of the government were seeking to expel Palestinians from the West Bank and take control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Al-Arouri said Hamas was “preparing for an all-out war, and we are closely discussing the prospects of this war with all relevant parties”, noting threats Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has recently made against Israel.

“The all-out war will be a defeat for Israel,” claimed al-Arouri.

Al-Arouri’s comments came days after Arabic-language media reports said terror chiefs in the Gaza Strip were taking heightened precautions over concerns they could be targeted by Israel.