Israel “has not yet finished the job” against Hezbollah and its goal of crushing the Lebanese pro-Iranian movement “will not be achieved tomorrow”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned today, the first day of a 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon.
The war against the Shiite movement, which began on March 2, has yielded “great results,” Netanyahu said in a videotaped message in Hebrew to an Israeli audience.
“There were two threats coming from Lebanon,” he said, “and we eliminated them: a “near threat” of “infiltration of thousands of terrorists into our territory” and “anti-tank missile attacks on our cities”, and a “distant threat” of “150.000 rockets and missiles destined to destroy Israeli cities.”
“We destroyed 90% of the stockpile of rockets and missiles accumulated by (Hassan) Nasrallah (Hezbollah leader killed in an Israeli raid in September 2024)” and “Hezbollah today is but a shadow of its former self compared to Nasrallah’s glory days,” he added.
However, “we have not finished the job yet,” he said, adding: “We have planned further actions in response to the threat of the remaining rockets and drones, and I will not elaborate on that.”
“But we also have another goal, which is the dismantling of Hezbollah,” and this “will not be achieved tomorrow,” Netanyahu continued, noting that “patience” and “perseverance” are required, as well as “careful navigation of the diplomatic landscape.”
Netanyahu’s office released this video shortly before US President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he was banning Israel from bombing Lebanon again.
Earlier today, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Kats also said that the military operation in Lebanon “has not been completed.”
This ceasefire went into effect at midnight Thursday into Friday. However, the Lebanese army reported violations by the Israeli side in the south of the country shortly after the ceasefire took effect.
