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Israel: We Can No Longer Accept Hizbullah's Radwan Force Sitting on Our Northern Border
(Times of Israel) Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said Saturday night that in the wake of the slaughter of 1,200 people in Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, Hizbullah's Radwan force could attempt a similar murderous invasion from the north, targeting Israeli civilians in communities near the border "within minutes." He said Israel was tackling Hamas "17 years too late," and "we can no longer accept the Radwan force sitting on the border. We can no longer accept Resolution 1701 not being implemented," referring to a UN Security Council resolution from 2006, at the end of the Second Lebanon War, that barred any Hizbullah presence within 30 km. of the border with Israel. Some 60,000 residents of border communities have been evacuated from the north since Oct. 7, amid relentless clashes across the border between Hizbullah and Israel. "Residents will not return if we don't do the same thing" in the north against Hizbullah as is being done in the south against Hamas, Hanegbi told Israel's Channel 12. "The situation in the north must be changed. And it will change. If Hizbullah agrees to change things via diplomacy, very good. But I don't believe it will." Therefore, "when the day comes," Israel will have to act to ensure that residents of the north are no longer "displaced in their land, and to guarantee for them that the situation in the north has changed." Israel does not want to fight simultaneously on two fronts and has been "making clear to the Americans that we are not interested in war [in the north], but that we will have no alternative but to impose a new reality" if Hizbullah remains a threat. Hanegbi said that at least 7,000 terrorists have been killed during the war so far.