The Israeli army has got its hands on “a quantity of state-of-the-art Russian weapons” in caches of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with the Figaro published Wednesday.
Resolution 1701 of the UN Security Council of 2006 “required that the only weapons present south of the Litani were those of the Lebanese army”, he reminded the French daily. “However, in this area, Hezbollah has dug hundreds of tunnels and caches, where we have just found a quantity of state-of-the-art Russian weapons,” he added. Russia is a close ally of the Syrian regime, and the latter owes it, among other things, its survival. Iran, which created Hezbollah, is helping Russia militarily in its war against Ukraine. Since October 7, Moscow has maintained rather cold relations with Jerusalem and has hosted several Hamas delegations.
“In almost twenty years, how many Hezbollah missiles has UNIFIL stopped? Zero, alas! “, he added.
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The Prime Minister was responding to a question in which he was reminded that “France, Spain and Italy accuse you of mistreating UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon)”, with “several incidents with wounded light”.
The American newspaper The Washington Postciting Israeli officials, recently reported large quantities of weapons discovered by the Israeli army in Lebanon and brought back to Israel, “including numerous advanced Russian and Chinese anti-tank missiles”.
After almost a year of exchanges of border fire with Hezbollah, Israel began in Lebanon on September 23 an intense campaign of air strikes against the strongholds of this organization, then on the 30th a ground offensive in the south.
Israel says it wants to move Hezbollah away from its border and put an end to its rocket attacks, in order to allow the return of some 60,000 displaced inhabitants to the north of its territory.
Hezbollah, claiming to act in support of Hamas, opened a front against Israel on October 8, 2023, the day after the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian terrorist group in Israel which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
“A new civil war in Lebanon would be a tragedy. It is certainly not our goal to provoke one. Israel does not intend to interfere in Lebanon’s internal affairs,” Mr. Netanyahu clarified.
“Our only goal is to allow our citizens living along the Lebanese border to be able to return home and feel safe there,” he explained.
On October 8, the Israeli Prime Minister called on the Lebanese to “liberate (their) country from Hezbollah so that this war can end.”
“You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it sinks into the abyss of a long war that will cause destruction and suffering like what we see in Gaza,” he warned at the time.
Since Hezbollah and Israel entered into open war almost a month ago, at least 1,373 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP count based on official figures which makes no distinction between the civilians and Hezbollah and Hamas fighters operating in Lebanese territory. The UN has recorded nearly 700,000 displaced people there.
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