Gantz said Israel’s main goal should be to ‘return the southern and northern residents to their homes, even at the price of escalation.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Speaking at a conference, Benny Gantz claimed that Israel can destroy Hezbollah’s military in just days.
With the escalation of Hezbollah’s almost daily attacks on Israel’s northern border, Israel’s military has been bracing for a possible all-out war with the Lebanese terror group.
US officials expressed concerns that Hezbollah, armed with sophisticated Iranian missiles, could breach Israel’s Iron Dome and seriously compromise Israel’s security.
However, Benny Gantz, former Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff, speaking at the 21st Herzliya Conference at Reichman University, expressed confidence in Israel’s ability to defeat Hezbollah.
He said, “We can bring Lebanon completely into the dark, and take apart Hezbollah’s power in days.”
However, Gantz said the real challenge and goal was to return Israeli evacuees to their homes by September 1st.
He explained that the aim was to “return the southern and northern residents to their homes, even at the price of escalation.”
Gantz explained that Israel’s price “will be heavy. We need to back up our institutions. We need to be ready for major incidents of harm [to the public]. We should try to avoid it, but if we need to do it, we cannot be deterred from it.”
He concluded, “We cannot let Hezbollah keep threats close to the northern border; we need to get the [northern] residents back by September 1.”
In addition, Gantz said that building alliances, including through normalization with the Saudis, was essential for deterring Iran.
“We still have the opportunity of normalization with the Saudis and other states, to build what we started to build, the Middle East air defense, to form a stranglehold on the Iranian axis,” he said.
In addition, Gantz said a main priority would be “to build up Israel’s defenses and to be ready for ‘the Judgment Day’ of stopping Iranian nuclear weapons.”
Gantz also said he supported a hostage deal, even if it meant a cessation of the war for the time being.
He made the analogy that it took the US 10 years after 9/11 to eliminate Osama Bin Laden, and there was time to neutralize the October 7th mastermind Yahya Sinwar.