Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

IDF chief: Hezbollah terror sites can’t be allowed to return

“We caught this in time, before it was too late,” Herzi Halevi said from an underground bunker in Southern Lebanon before it was destroyed.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi tours a Hezbollah underground terror base in Southern Lebanon before it is destroyed, Oct. 28, 2024. Credit: IDF.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi tours a Hezbollah underground terror base in Southern Lebanon before it is destroyed, Oct. 28, 2024. Credit: IDF.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi earlier this week delivered a video message from an underground Hezbollah base in Southern Lebanon, emphasizing that this sort of terrorist infrastructure cannot be allowed to return.

“We have been saying for years that Hezbollah is preparing the area of the border for war. To the countries that doubted it, to the United Nations, to the UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon] force that was [stationed] up here …We caught this in time, before it was too late, and this infrastructure must not return here in future generations,” said Halevi.

The bunker complex was destroyed shortly afterward.

Speaking to soldiers in one of the tunnels, Halevi stressed that “our task over the years to come will be to make sure that no new [infrastructure] is built.”

The IDF’s work in Lebanon now means that in the future, “you will walk around here, drive around with your grandchildren in the Hula Valley and you will know that you freed the Ramim Ridge from a great threat, a substantial threat,” he said.

“We already have demonstrated that hate and hateful acts are not going to be tolerated, and so if we could even take it a step further to define antisemitism and what that is like, then I want to be able to take that,” Jeannette Sánchez-Palacios told JNS.
The United States, Morocco and Israel said they are “undaunted by regional challenges”
City Hall is making “a mockery of open government, at least when it comes to the administration’s relationship with the Jewish community,” attorney Jack Lester told JNS.
The vice president is reportedly engaged in a broader effort to mend ties with Republican Jews.