Former War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz speaking at the 21st Herzliya Conference at Reichman University, June 25, 2024 (Photo: Screenshot)
As the high intensity part of the Gaza War is coming to an end, the focus is increasingly shifting north towards a potential full-scale war between Israel and the powerful Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist militia Hezbollah, which has been attacking the Israel’s northern communities on a regular basis since Oct. 8.
During the 21st Herzliya Conference at Reichman University, former War Cabinet minister and head of the National Unity party, Benny Gantz, argued that the Israeli military could dismantle Hezbollah’s military capabilities within days.
“We can bring Lebanon completely into the dark, and take apart Hezbollah’s power in days,” Gantz stated during his speech. His remarks were reportedly a response to reports Hezbollah forces could potentially disable much of Israel’s electrical grid.
The Hezbollah terrorist organization has been attacking northern Israeli communities on a regular basis since it launched its attack on Israel on Oct. 8, one day after large-scale Hamas invasion and terror attack in southern Israel near the Gaza border.
The war and the ongoing attacks have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to leave their homes in southern and northern Israel. Dozens of Israelis and at least 340 Hezbollah terrorists have so far died during the ongoing fighting on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Hezbollah has fired around 5,000 aerial projectiles (drones, rockets and missiles) into northern Israel over the past eight months. Many northern Israeli border communities have been evacuated and residents have no indication from the government when they will be able to return home.
Gantz, who is a former Israeli defense minister and former IDF chief of staff, emphasized the need to “return the southern and northern residents back to their homes, even at the price of escalation.”
“We need to back up our institutions. We need to be ready for major incidents of harm [to the public]. We should try to avoid it, but if we need to do it, we cannot be deterred from it,” Gantz said during his speech at the conference.
“We cannot let Hezbollah keep threats close to the northern border,” he said, adding, that Israel needs “to get northern residents back by September 1,” referring to the official beginning of the Israeli school year in the fall.
Gantz also addressed the issue of forming a regional coalition with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states against the Iranian regime.
“We still have the opportunity of normalization with the Saudis and other states, to build what we started to build, the Middle East air defense, to form a stranglehold on the Iranian axis,” he said.
The former minister also emphasized the need to cooperate with the United States, “to build up Israel’s defenses and to be ready for ‘the Judgment Day’ of stopping Iranian nuclear weapons.”
Boaz Ganor, an Israeli terrorism expert and president of Reichman University, stressed that Hezbollah and Iran pose a more significant threat to Israeli security than Hamas in Gaza.
“Hamas is a tactical threat, Hezbollah is a strategic threat, and Iran is an existential threat,” Ganor said.
He warned that Iran has succeeding in forcing Israel to invest immense resources in fighting its minor terror proxy Hamas, while the more powerful Hezbollah forces and the Iranian regime’s nuclear program both remain largely intact.
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