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Gantz said Israel’s main goal should be to ‘return the southern and northern residents to their homes, even at the price of escalation.’
By: Vered Weiss–World Israel News
Speaking at a conference, Benny Gantz claimed that Israel can destroy Hezbollah’s military in just days.
With the escalation of Hezbollah’s almost daily attacks on Israel’s northern border, Israel’s military has been bracing for a possible all-out war with the Lebanese terror group.
US officials expressed concerns that Hezbollah, armed with sophisticated Iranian missiles, could breach Israel’s Iron Dome and seriously compromise Israel’s security.
However, Benny Gantz, former Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff, speaking at the 21st Herzliya Conference at Reichman University, expressed confidence in Israel’s ability to defeat Hezbollah.
He said, “We can bring Lebanon completely into the dark, and take apart Hezbollah’s power in days.”
However, Gantz said the real challenge and goal was to return Israeli evacuees to their homes by September 1st.
He explained that the aim was to “return the southern and northern residents to their homes, even at the price of escalation.”
Gantz explained that Israel’s price “will be heavy. 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.”
He concluded, “We cannot let Hezbollah keep threats close to the northern border; we need to get the [northern] residents back by September 1.”
In addition, Gantz said that building alliances, including through normalization with the Saudis, was essential for deterring Iran.
“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.
In addition, Gantz said a main priority would be “to build up Israel’s defenses and to be ready for ‘the Judgment Day’ of stopping Iranian nuclear weapons.”
Gantz also said he supported a hostage deal, even if it meant a cessation of the war for the time being.
He made the analogy that it took the US 10 years after 9/11 to eliminate Osama Bin Laden, and there was time to neutralize the October 7th mastermind Yahya Sinwar.
In other news, WIN reported on Tueday that Egypt has vetoed an Israeli plan to permit sick and wounded Gazans to leave through the Rafah border crossing to get medical care outside the war zone, the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar newspaper has reported.
Cairo has been demanding that Israel allow Palestinians to regain control over the critical crossing ever since the IDF invaded the area first several weeks ago on its way to eradicate the last remaining Hamas battalions which were hiding in Rafah.
The army has discovered dozens of smuggling tunnels to Egypt as it solidified its command over the whole border area, called the Philadelphi Corridor, and is determined to shut down what it calls “Hamas’ oxygen pipeline” so the terrorist organization cannot resupply itself with weaponry to continue the war.
The Egyptian sources cited by the Lebanese daily complained that the IDF’s work “aim[s] to establish a fait accompli, especially after the complete destruction of the crossing from the Palestinian side, and the refusal to make arrangements for its reconstruction or enable Palestinian officials to fully manage it.”
Israel, said the report, would allow “unlimited” numbers of wounded Gazans to leave through the crossing.
