Israel: Unprecedented quiet along Lebanese borders

Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot has said that the border with south Lebanon “has been quieter in the past 11 years than it ever was before,” noting there have been no explosions, alarms or infiltrations, the Anadolu Agency reported yesterday.

Israel carried out a major offensive on South Lebanon in 2006 and Hezbollah fought against it, losing more than 1,400 fighters. The Israeli offensive caused much destruction to the infrastructure of the country and killed thousands of civilians.

“It was a very hard hit to the organisation’s infrastructure as the war ended with the Israeli forces seven to 14 kilometres inside Lebanon,” Eizenkot said.

Read: Netanyahu: Israel will never give up Golan Heights

He continued: “Eleven years later, Hezbollah has rearmed and is more able to fight, despite the complexities of doing so.” However, he insisted that the Israeli army “is a strong, powerful army, and it has a definite advantage over its enemies.”

With regards Hezbollah, Eizenkot said: “One-third of the organisation’s fighters are currently in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, most of them in Syria. They have lost 1,700 of their men in the past three years, and they have nearly 7,000 wounded. They are in serious trouble, an organisation trying to learn how to do battle in regimental formation.”

The Israeli top military official continued: “In addition to their various budgetary problems and morale problems, we also have to understand that the organisation lost two of its commanders over the last seven or eight years.”

“One of these was Imad Mughniyah, who was killed in Damascus. The other is a captain who was killed by his subordinates last year as far as we know, and as I said, we have very good intelligence.”

He added: “Hezbollah is dealing with an incredibly complicated situation. They are fighting in Syria, but we are not letting them deceive us. We prefer to place our northern border and Hezbollah at the top of our priority list. We have defensive plans, offensive plans and a high level of preparedness to fight.”