Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determined in his country’s fight with the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, saying he believes the Iran-backed militia will “get the message.”
“Over the past few days we hit Hezbollah with a string of strikes that it didn’t imagine,” Netanyahu said in a video statement, as reported by the Times of Israel. “If Hezbollah didn’t get the message, I promise you, it will get the message.”
Israel wants to push Hezbollah out of the border area again to enable the return of tens of thousands of residents who fled northern Israel.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war against Hezbollah’s ally Hamas almost a year ago, not a day has gone by when Hezbollah has not attacked Israeli cities in the north, Netanyahu said. Some 60,000 Israelis have become “refugees in their own country.”
“No country can tolerate [rocket] fire at its residents, [rocket] fire at its cities,” Netanyahu said. “The State of Israel cannot tolerate it either.”
