Foreign Minister Israel Katz hit back Tuesday after Lebanon’s Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, released a nine-minute film showing footage from a surveillance drone that flew over the northern port city of Haifa and surrounds.
More evidence of the seriousness of Hezbollah in comparison to Hamas. Hezbollah has released footage from its new surveillance drone flying over the Israeli city of Haifa, covering both residential areas and military sites, obviously a clear statement of their intent, should the… pic.twitter.com/VPjeOxHOtp
— Andrew Fox (@Mr_Andrew_Fox) June 19, 2024
“Nasrallah boasts today about filming the ports of Haifa, operated by international companies from China and India, and threatens to attack them,” Katz noted.
“We are very close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon. In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed, and Lebanon will be severely hit.
“The State of Israel will pay a price on the front and home fronts, but with a strong and united nation, and the full power of the IDF, we will restore security to the residents of the north,” he added.
The drone footage showed details of future Hezbollah targets in northern Israel, including facilities at the Haifa Port, a manufacturing complex belonging to Rafael Military Industries, part of Rafael Advance Defense Systems, an Israel Navy base, oil tanks, the BIG shopping center and dozens of other sites packed with military, commercial and residential buildings.
The Hezbollah-linked Al-Mayadeen news outlet also claimed the drone footage revealed a site that “includes a large number of factories, warehouses, and experimental fields, where components of effective air defense systems are manufactured and assembled, especially the Iron Dome and ‘David’s Sling.’” The site is “extremely sensitive and secret. It has a total area of 6.5 square km and is 24 km away from the Lebanese border,” the news outlet reported.
The report also claimed the surveillance drone filmed “several Iron Dome platforms, a rocket engine testing tunnel, rocket engine stores, air defense missile stores, missile component manufacturing facilities, David’s Sling platforms, systems factories Control and guidance, the company’s administrative buildings, in addition to missile testing radar.”
The video, which comes as part of Hezbollah’s psychological warfare against Israel, was widely shared on social media.
“It is a Hezbollah propaganda film with all the aspects of Hezbollah propaganda that we have become used to by now,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer told reporters at Wednesday’s daily briefing.
“Look. This is a deadly terrorist organization, an Iranian-backed terror organization that seeks to instill terror in our people [with] Hezbollah’s usual mischief-making propaganda films; no one should be surprised at that point.”
Mencer added, however, that despite the glitzy high-tech film production, Hezbollah offered nothing in the video that the IDF and Israeli intelligence doesn’t already know.
“We know what Hezbollah are about,” Mencer emphasized. “We know what their capabilities are, and we know precisely how to deal with them. One way or the other, diplomatically or through military means, this threat will be dealt with and this country will be defended.”
More than 5,000 rockets, missiles, mortar shells and combat drones have been fired at Israel by Hezbollah since the start of the October 7th war.
At present, Hezbollah holds approximately 150,000 rockets and missiles in its arsenal, including many with precision guided systems.
According to the Alma Research and Education Center, as of December 2021 Hezbollah possessed approximately 2,000 drones of various sizes and capabilities, most of them produced by Iran.
