Diplomacy

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WATCH: Netanyahu Exhorts Security Council to “Condemn Hezbollah’s Wanton Acts of Aggression”

by TheTower.org Staff |

Ahead of the United Nations Security Council open meeting on Hezbollah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the council “to condemn Hezbollah’s wanton acts of aggression,” in a speech he delivered Wednesday.

Prior to Netanyahu’s speech, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus explained how the army detected the fourth tunnel. Israel was able to determine the location of the tunnel, in part, due to changes in the terrain in Lebanon, including the burning of a tree, and its subsequent absence in a field of vegetation.

The prime minister quickly got to the point, after mentioning that since Israel’s Operation Northern Shield started two weeks ago, the IDF has uncovered four Hezbollah attack tunnels. He said that Hezbollah’s “goal has been to penetrate our territory, to kidnap our people, including civilians, murder civilians and conquer the northern piece of the Galilee.”

Netanyahu noted that this violation of Israeli sovereignty constituted a breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, and that UNIFIL, the UN’s peacekeeping force on the border of Israel and Lebanon, had confirmed the existence of the tunnels and ruled that they violated 1701.

“It is important to understand what Hezbollah is doing here. It is committing a double war crime,” the prime minister explained. “It’s targeting Israeli civilians, while hiding behind Lebanese civilians. Targeting Israeli civilians, while hiding behind Lebanese civilians. That’s a double war crime.”

Netanyahu said that since Israel has exposed the existence of the tunnels, it now holds Lebanon accountable because its “territory is being used to attack our territory.”

The Israeli leader said that given Hezbollah’s breach of a Security Council Resolution, the international community must respond.

He said that Wednesday’s Security Council meeting had been called at his request. Netanyahu also called on the Security Council “to condemn Hezbollah’s wanton acts of aggression; to designate Hezbollah, in its entirety, as a terrorist organization; to press for heightened sanctions against Hezbollah; to demand that Lebanon stop allowing its territory to be used as an act of aggression and its citizens to be used as pawns; to support Israel’s right to defend itself against Iranian-inspired and Iranian-conducted aggression.”

[Photo: IsraeliPM / YouTube ]

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