Israel: IDF Has ‘Effective Deterrence’ Against Hezbollah

Countering threats made by Hezbollah’s chief, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said the IDF’s might has kept Hezbollah at bay for the past decade. 

IDF’s Chief of Staff said Wednesday that Israel has “effective deterrence” against the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror group.

Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot spoke after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to attack an ammonia storage facility in Haifa in northern Israel, using it as an “atomic bomb.”

Nasrallah said Tuesday that “our rockets combined with the ammonia storage facility in Haifa will create the effect of a nuclear weapon.”

Eisenkot said Hezbollah is Israel’s most formidable adversary, but that for ten years Israel’s border with Lebanon has been its quietest frontier.

In 2006, Israel fought a war with the terrorist group in Lebanon.

Speaking last month at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) annual conference in an address titled Threats, Challenges, and Opportunities Facing Israel, Eisenkot said that Hezbollah aspires to install a Shiite hegemony in Lebanon, but Israel’s threat to destroy Lebanon if Hezbollah attacks the Jewish State has been the main factor deterring Hezbollah from trying.

Also last month, the IDF concluded a two-week drill to prepare it for simultaneous combat and face multiple threats along its northern border with Syria and Lebanon.

Northern Command chief Aviv Kochavi said the exercise “demonstrated IDF’s ability to implement operational plans in all arenas while facing Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) both in Syria and Lebanon. In this framework we simulated vast maneuvers, substantial fire power, and attack of thousands of targets in all combat areas, with high efficiency, including residential areas exploited by the enemy.”

By: AP and Unite with Israel Staff

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