Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz visited the security zone in Lebanon on Tuesday, four days after the signing of a framework agreement with Lebanon, and said Israeli forces would remain there as long as Hezbollah continues to threaten Israel.
The two were briefed on IDF activity in the area and watched a demonstration of new munitions and weapons designed to counter the drone threat.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz at the security zone in Lebanon
(Photo: Haim Zach/ GPO)
“As long as Hezbollah is here and threatens us, we are staying,” Netanyahu told soldiers during the visit. “Our instruction to the troops is: If you identify a threat, act.”
Netanyahu said Israel had struck a major blow against the Iranian axis, with Hezbollah as its central component.
“We took the Iranian axis and began to crush it,” he said. “The most important link was here, Hezbollah. They had 150,000 missiles and rockets. Today they have about 8% left. That is still significant, but it is no longer what it was.”
Netanyahu said Israeli operations had killed 9,000 terrorists, including hundreds in recent weeks, and said the main goal was to create buffer and security zones on the enemy side of the border rather than inside Israel.
“That is what we are doing in Lebanon. We did it in Gaza,” he said.
Against the backdrop of the agreement with Lebanon and the criticism surrounding it, Netanyahu said Israel would not allow “an army of terrorists” to sit on its border.
The security zone in Lebanon
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson)
“We are pushing them away. That is what you are doing,” he said. “And we are destroying everything above ground and underground that served them as a means of attack against us: infiltration, attack, terror tunnels, terror villages. All of that is going. That is the instruction: Do not leave it behind, and you are doing it.”
Netanyahu said the agreement reflected a direct rejection of Iranian and Hezbollah influence.
“Lebanon recognizes Israel, Israel recognizes Lebanon, and they are also saying to Iran and Hezbollah: ‘Get out of here, you have nothing to do here,’” he said. “There are two sovereign states that want to make peace between them, that truly want to restore a reality of security and prosperity for residents of the north and also for the residents of Lebanon.”
He called the agreement “a slap in the face” and “a punch in the face of the Iranian axis,” but warned that it “will not necessarily pass quietly.”
The framework agreement with Lebanon was signed Friday. Although the timetable for the agreement remains unclear, as does the exact scope of the enclaves or pilot areas from which the IDF is expected to withdraw, the full text published by the White House said Israel and Lebanon declare their aspiration to begin a process that would end decades of armed conflict and establish peace.
Unlike the November 2024 agreement, the new deal is expected to be closely accompanied by the U.S. military, which will also train and strengthen the Lebanese army. Israeli officials say this gives the agreement a better chance of success than the previous one. A monitoring headquarters was also established after the 2024 agreement, with American, French, Lebanese and Israeli participation.
After the signing, Hezbollah announced that it rejected the agreement, and some of its supporters took to the streets in protest. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem attacked Lebanese state authorities, telling them to “repent from the sins that are destroying Lebanon,” and said the group would “continue as a resistance on the ground to defeat the occupation.”