Netanyahu vows to ‘restore security’ to northern Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday that the major flare-up with Hezbollah earlier this week wasn’t “the end of the story.”

During a tour of the country’s northern border, Netanyahu said, "[On Sunday], we foiled a surprise attack by Hezbollah against the State of Israel. We destroyed thousands of intermediate-range rockets that were aimed at the Galilee and the Golan Heights. We thwarted all of the drones that were directed against the State of Israel, at the Galilee and the center of the country, and they were destroyed.”

However, while the operation was “a great success, ... I will not tell you that it was enough. On the contrary,” he continued. When he had said following the strike that it “is not the end of the story,” he added, “I spoke the simple truth.”

The story will only end “when we are able to restore security and the residents safely to their homes,” he said. “This is neither mere words nor a slogan—this is a national goal of the highest order. We are committed to achieving it and we will achieve it, with your help and with God’s,” he added.

Early on Sunday morning, approximately 100 Israeli Air Force fighter jets, directed by IDF intelligence, destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers in Southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah subsequently fired more than 200 projectiles into Israel. Out of the 230 rockets and 20 UAVs that crossed into Israeli territory, 90% “were from the heart of civilian areas,” according to the military. Nearly all of the launchers were positioned near mosques, schools, gas stations and U.N. sites.

During Wednesday’s tour, Netanyahu also visited the Israel Defense Forces Northern Command headquarters, where he received an operational briefing from Northern Command head Maj.-Gen. Uri Gordin.

The prime minister then visited a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee, where he spoke with Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion and representatives from the community’s civilian defense squad.

In parallel, Israel confirmed on Wednesday that it had killed a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist in an airstrike near the Syria-Lebanon border.

The IDF described Faris Qasim as a “significant terrorist in the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization’s Operations Division,” who was responsible for developing the terror group’s operational plans in Syria and Lebanon.

Additional Islamic Jihad terrorists traveling from Syria to Lebanon to carry out terrorist activities for Hezbollah were killed in the strike, according to the IDF.

Israel has for years targeted Tehran’s terror proxies in Syria and combated Iranian entrenchment there, including weapons shipments and military infrastructure.

Islamic Jihad has dispatched its Syrian-based terrorists to Lebanon to join Hezbollah, which has been waging war against Israel since Oct. 8, a day after the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people in the northwestern Negev.