Top defense official: In 24 hours, Israel attacked three different ‘fronts’

Hezbollah’s precision missile program is the State of Israel’s top priority, right after working to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability, a top defense official said on Monday, admitting, for the first time, that Israel has carried out attacks against different fronts beyond Syria.

According to the official, Israel has been operating against Iran in several arenas and operated in two additional fronts within a recent 24-hour span of time. “In recent days, we were attacked from several fronts,” the official said. “We were in simultaneous attack mode in multiple places.” 

“Had we had not acted correctly we would be in a different reality today,” he said.
 
“To prevent this consolidation by Iran, we are carrying out many operations that nobody knows anything about,” he said, adding that the operations are carried out by the IDF and the Mossad.

“Everything we have done during the last few weeks and days was planned and executed exactly how we wanted,” he said.  “Everything is part of our overall strategy that we are managing in several different ways and in several different arenas.”

The official spoke a day after Hezbollah and Israel exchanged blows along the Lebanese border in an attempt by the Iranian-backed guerilla organization to exact a price from Israel for the bombing of a terrorist cell in Syria in late August. While no IDF troops were injured, Israel fired over 100 artillery shells towards targets in south Lebanon in response to the attack and airlifted two uninjured soldiers to Rambam hospital in Haifa.

“We can’t hide injured troops in Israel for half an hour,” he said, disputing claim in Lebanon that troops had been injured in the attack.

According to the senior official, Israel had planned and prepared for possible enemy reactions.

According to the official, Israel “achieved its goals.”

The senior official spoke as a tense quiet returned to northern Israel after Hezbollah fired three Kornet anti-tank missiles at empty IDF vehicles near the community of Avivim along the Lebanese border on Sunday.
 
Hezbollah passed on a message to Jerusalem shortly after its attack along the northern border – and Israel’s response – that from its point of view the incident was over, the senior defense official said.

According to the official, the message from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was passed through Lebanese Prime Minister Said Hariri along to Israel via officials from three separate countries – Egypt, France and the United States – to stop the fire.

Israel replied that “quiet will be answered with quiet.”

The top official said that while preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb remains Israel’s top priority, thwarting Hezbollah’s precision missile project has become the second top objective. After those two is preventing Iranian entrenchment in various Middle Eastern countries. 

The IDF’s Northern Command has been on high alert since last week expecting a limited strike against military targets over strikes in Syria and an alleged Israeli drone attack in Beirut’s Dahiyeh last week.

On Sunday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi met with UNIFIL Force commander and head of mission Maj.-Gen. Stefano Del Col who called the attack against the IDF a “serious incident in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701 and clearly directed at undermining stability in the area.”

Kochavi, who was meeting Del Col for the first time since he assumed his position in January told the UNIFIL commander that Israel “ will not accept harm to our citizens or our soldiers, and we will not accept Hezbollah’s precision missile project on Lebanese soil.”

According to Kochavi, “the current state of affairs is not one we can accept” and called on Lebanon and UNIFIL to stop Iran and Hezbollah’s precision missile project.

“The state of Lebanon and UNIFIL must bring an end to Iran and Hezbollah’s precision missile project in Lebanon and fully implement [UN] Security Council Resolution 1701,” he said.