Hezbollah was preparing an attack on Israel “even bigger” than October 7, says Netanyahu on CNews

Hezbollah was preparing in Lebanon an attack against Israel “even bigger than that of October 7” 2023 perpetrated by Hamas from Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday evening during an interview with two French media, CNews and Europe 1, owned by the conservative billionaire close to the far-right, Vincent Bolloré “100 meters, 200 m from the border (Israeli on the Lebanese side, Editor’s note), we found tunnels which were preparing an invasion of Israel. , an attack even bigger than that of October 7, with jeeps, motorcycles, rockets, missiles They were planning an invasion,” he assured. This is the second interview given. by the head of the Israeli government given on French television since the start of the Gaza war, after that broadcast on the LCI channel, a member of the TF1 group, last May.

In this same interview, recorded in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu estimated that the Jewish state was “at the beginning of the end of the ongoing war in the Middle East”, while specifying that “the battle is not over” . In more than a year of total war in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, Israel has been carrying out an intense aerial bombing campaign for a month in Lebanon, coupled with a ground offensive in South Lebanon since September 30, and this after almost a year of war of attrition on the Lebanese-Israeli border – mainly – against Hezbollah.

In this regard, the Israeli Prime Minister notably claimed that the fighters of the Shiite party were using the “facilities of the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Editor’s note) as a cover to continue attacks against Israel”, while he was asked about the repeated incidents of Israeli army fire against peacekeepers, which have already left several injured. “We are trying to avoid hitting UNIFIL forces. The problem is that (it is) Iran (which) occupied Lebanon, it is not Israel. We are fighting against Hezbollah and we will liberate Lebanon from it, as well as from Iran,” he proclaimed.

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Finally, Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his “disappointment” with France’s position on this war. “I spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron, and I felt great disappointment. We supported Macron at the start of the war, but little by little I saw that he was changing his position and taking positions contrary to our common interests,” he said. The rag has been burning between the two men since remarks by the French president, made behind closed doors on Israel during a Council of Ministers last week, were leaked. According to participants, Emmanuel Macron told his government that Benjamin Netanyahu “must not free himself from UN decisions”, and “not forget that his country was created by a UN decision”.

At the end of his interview with a star journalist of the channel, Laurence Ferrari, the latter thanked her for the commitment of his media to “fight for freedom, since you fight for the Judeo-Christian civilization which has given so much in the world and which is attacked by Islamic fundamentalism.

After almost a year of border fire exchanges with Hezbollah, Israel says it wants to move the latter away from its border and put an end to its rocket fire, in order to allow the return of its 60,000 displaced inhabitants to the north of its territory. . At least 1,552 people have been killed in Lebanon since the Israeli airstrikes campaign began on September 23, 2024, according to a tally from the Lebanese Health Ministry. The UN has recorded some 800,000 displaced people in the country, and according to Lebanese authorities, nearly 500,000 people have fled to Syria.