RADM. Daniel Hagari

Press Briefing on Northern Arrows Operation Against Hezbollah in Lebanon

First Posted on 23 September 2024

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Since October 8th, the Hezbollah terrorist organization has fired over 9,000 rockets, missiles, and UAVs at Israeli families, homes, and communities. In the last week alone, Hezbollah fired over 700 rockets, missiles, and UAVs, hitting homes deep inside Israel and forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters.

For years, Hezbollah has been planning to do in northern Israel what Hamas did in southern Israel on October 7th: invade Israel, infiltrate civilian communities, and massacre innocent civilians.

To achieve this goal, Hezbollah drew up a plan. They called it “Conquer the Galilee.”

On Friday, the IDF conducted a precise strike based on intelligence on Ibrahim Aqil -- the architect of this plan -- and other senior Radwan Force commanders in Beirut. At the time of the strike, these Hezbollah commanders were meeting to plan an October 7th-style attack in northern Israel.

To make sure that Hezbollah can't carry out such an attack -- and in order to enable all 60,000 Israelis to safely return back to their homes in northern Israel -- we must act against this threat. This threat is just a few hundred meters away from the communities and families in northern Israel. Today, based on precise intelligence, we conducted extensive strikes against Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon that posed an imminent threat.

The IDF struck 1,300 targets until now, including long-range cruise missiles, heavyweight rockets with a 1,000 kg warhead, this is the type of rocket that was used in the Majdal Shams attack that killed 12 children. we also struck short and medium-range rockets, and UAVs, all capable of attacking deep inside Israeli territory -- and causing major damage to civilian towns and cities.

As part of our efforts to mitigate harm to civilians, we provided advanced warnings to civilians in specific villages in Lebanon where Hezbollah embedded its military assets and weapons, and warned them to move out of harm's way.

However, even as we called on civilians to move away from danger, we saw that Hezbollah operatives were doing the opposite and acted to prevent civilians moving to safety.

This is because Hezbollah uses the civilian population -- and civilian homes -- as a human shield for its terrorist activities.

Today, we exposed this strategy, showing how Hezbollah uses civilian homes as a cover for their deadly weapons. In these images, you can see how Hezbollah hides long-range rockets with a range of hundreds of kilometers, inside the attic of a house in the heart of the Houmin Al Tachta village in Southern Lebanon.

You can see here that the rocket is stored on a hydraulic system and is prepared for launch out of an opening in the roof, directed at the communities in northern Israel.

Under this attic, a family lives, and serves as a human shield for Hezbollah.

Following IDF strikes today, we saw many secondary explosions -- such as this. Behind every secondary explosion, there's a building containing deadly munitions, rockets, and missiles triggering such a reaction like you see here. It is likely that some of the casualties are from these secondary explosions.

Here you can see a house used by Hezbollah to store its weapons. In the footage here, following our strike on the weapons, secondary explosions can be clearly seen, and a rocket fired and hit a nearby house.

Let me be clear: Hezbollah is responsible for this situation. This is Hezbollah’s plan -- to turn southern Lebanon into a battlefield for its attacks on Israel. We cannot accept a terrorist group storing weapons inside people’s homes, and using them to fire at other civilian communities.

The international community must condemn Hezbollah’s grave violations of international law and actions that endanger civilians on both sides of the border.

The IDF makes vast efforts not to hit civilians and makes every effort to mitigate harm to civilians during operational activity.

Regarding the high number of casualties, everyone is a tragedy, in Lebanon, among those killed were large numbers of Hezbollah terrorists who were next to the weapons that we targeted.

Israel is facing threats on all fronts -- and continuing to act against them in defense of the people of Israel.

We have many other missions to carry out. We have to bring back home all of the hostages held in brutal conditions by Hamas. We have to continue dismantling Hamas’s capabilities in Gaza. And we have to bring security to every Israeli citizen -- in the north and in the south.

Original Text Source: .idf.il

Page Created: 9/24/24

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