Netanyahu: Hezbollah has been dealt unimaginable blows

2024-09-22 14:29:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel has dealt Hezbollah "a blow it could not have imagined", after several days of intensified attacks on Lebanon.

In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu said that if the militant group "hasn't gotten the message by now, I promise you they will."

He reiterated that Israel is determined to return displaced citizens to the north, adding: "No country can tolerate fire on its people, fire on its cities. And neither will the Israeli state tolerate it. We will do everything necessary to restore security."

Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, said that the measures against Hezbollah will continue until the residents of northern Israel can return to their homes, adding that Israel "will do everything necessary to achieve this".

Gallant was on a visit to the Israeli Air Force's command and control center when he said the Lebanese militant group "is beginning to feel some of the capacity" of the Israeli military and that "they feel they are being followed, and we are seeing the results." He also called the operation carried out by the Israeli Air Force "very impressive, both defensively and offensively".

Lebanon's Hezbollah group – designated a terrorist organization by the US – fired more than 100 rockets in the early morning hours of September 22 towards a wider area and deeper inside northern Israel.

The overnight barrage of rockets set off alarm sirens across northern Israel, forcing thousands of people into shelters. The Israeli military said the rockets had been fired "at civilian areas", signaling a possible escalation, as rockets had previously focused mostly on military targets.

The rocket attack followed an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on September 20 that killed at least 37 people, including one of Hezbollah's top leaders, as well as women and children. Hezbollah was still dealing with a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of personal devices to explode just days earlier.

The Israeli military said it had carried out a wave of strikes in southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours, hitting around 400 militant targets, including rocket launchers. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said these strikes had prevented a larger attack. The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, has called for calm in the Middle East.

"With the region on the brink of imminent catastrophe, it cannot be emphasized enough: there is no military solution that will make either side safer," Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert wrote in a post on X.

Hennis-Plasschaert had previously criticized the attack that led to the detonation of thousands of devices in Lebanon and warned that the attack marked "an extremely disturbing escalation in an already unacceptable context."/ Rel