‘Stand up for peace and truth,’ Netanyahu tells UN ahead of meeting on Hezbollah

Ahead of the UN Security Council meeting Wednesday on the Hezbollah terror tunnels, Netanyahu urged the Council to stand up for peace and truth.

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied to reporters’ questions ahead of the UNSC meeting on Wednesday regarding Hezbollah’s terror tunnels, which violate Israeli sovereignty and Resolution 1701.

Asked whether the Lebanese army knew in real time that the tunnels were being dug, he said:

“To the best of our knowledge the answer is no. I think very few people knew about it, period. But they know about it now. And they should be there. They should be going to the entry piers of these tunnels. They should be uncovering them and neutralizing them. They’re not doing that and it’s their obligation to do….

“Hezbollah says, ‘We’re going to destroy you. We’re going to wipe you off the face of the earth. We’re helping Iran that wants to wipe you off the face of the earth. And we’re going to bring weapons into Lebanon itself and weapons into Syria from Iran for that end. Your destruction.’

“So clearly we have the right of self-defense. This is what we’re doing. This is not a right of self-defense; this is part of the propagation of aggression towards the annihilation of Israel and the conquest of its territory. Declared by Hezbollah.”

Regarding the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Netanyahu said, “I think it’s been a long time coming but UNIFIL has finally filed a report that documents Hezbollah aggression against us. UNIFIL was tasked with preventing smuggling of weapons into southern Lebanon and to prevent aggressive actions across that border after the Second Lebanon War.

“When the Second Lebanon War ended, there were about 15,000 rockets and missiles in Lebanon aimed against Israel, mostly in southern Lebanon. Today, there are about 150,000. Ten times that. There has not been a single report of a single rocket or a single missile filed by UNIFIL.

Lebanese army ‘cooperates with Hezbollah’

“So the fact that we have finally a report from UNIFIL confirming these terror tunnels that are being dug into Israel, violating Security Council 1701, violating Israel’s sovereignty and violating the basic norms between nations, I think, is important. But it’s obviously long overdue. And what has to be done now is to have UNIFIL do something serious. We await to see that.

“But in fact the Lebanese army has done nothing of the kind. It very often cooperates with Hezbollah. It certainly doesn’t challenge Hezbollah and it often directs its weapons against us… The Lebanese army has been a total failure in this regard. They failed to take action to control their own territory. They failed to take action to prevent the use of their territory against the territory of a neighboring state. And they failed to dislodge the tyrannical Hezbollah. They haven’t even tried.”

On Russia

“I spoke to President Putin the other day, pending this meeting today and I asked that Russia take the right stance, which is to condemn Hezbollah and not be either supportive of them or neutral with this,” Netanyahu said.

“Russia often says it wants to prevent another war, well, the way to prevent another war is to prevent Hezbollah from acting aggressively against Israel from Lebanon or for that matter from Syria. Same thing for Iran. I’ve said that to Mr. Putin many times, many times. And I repeated that message the other day when I spoke with him,” he said.

‘I don’t believe in being timid’

“I don’t understand why I should keep it secret. Hezbollah wants to keep it secret. We have to expose them. I mean, they’re saying they’re just acting defensively, which is rubbish. I think it’s important to expose them.

“I don’t believe in the school of being timid and cowering and not speaking the truth. We speak the truth,” Netanyahu said. “There is such a web of lies … so many smoke screens that are put forward and we want to tear away these lies, these masks of deceit and show things as they are.

“Hezbollah is a tool of Iran. Both are committed to our destruction. They use criminal methods … commit war crimes against our civilians and they commit war crimes against Lebanon’s civilians,” he said.

“The Lebanese government, which should be the first to challenge this and to protest this, is doing nothing at best and colluding at worst. That’s the truth. That has to be exposed, condemned and acted against. And there is no way to do that with a blanket of silence,” Netanyahu said.

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