WarSclerotic

Ahead of a UN Security Council meeting concerning Iran’s weekend test of a nuclear-capable missile, Tehran’s air force chief adopted a defiant tone Tuesday, insisting his country would continue to increase the range of its missiles.

“One of our most important programs is increasing the range of missiles and ammunition,” Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh told the state-linked Fars news agency in comments reported by Reuters.

“We don’t see any limitations for ourselves in this field,” he added.

The UN Security Council will meet behind closed doors on Tuesday at the request of France and Britain after they accused Iran of test-firing a medium-range nuclear-capable missile on Saturday, diplomats said.

The United States said the missile launch was a violation of a UN resolution that endorsed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, from which Washington has withdrawn.

That resolution calls on Iran to refrain from testing missiles capable of carrying a nuclear weapon.

The UN Security Council meets on April 14, 2018, at UN Headquarters in New York. (AFP/Hector Retamal)

France said it was concerned by the test, with the foreign ministry describing it as “provocative and destabilizing” and saying it “does not conform” with UN resolution 2231 on the Iran deal.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called the missile test “provocative, threatening and inconsistent” with the resolution and said Britain was determined “that it should cease.”

Iran has long maintained that its missile program is defensive in nature and not aimed at ensuring the delivery of a nuclear weapon, a stance upheld by Russia at the Security Council. Western powers disagree.

Iran has long refused to compromise on its missile development programs, recently revealing that the country’s missile forces can deliver a payload at a distance of some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).

In the Fars report, Air Force chief Nasirzadeh did not specify the new range the military was seeking for its missiles.

Earlier this week, Washington’s Iran envoy Brian Hook urged the European Union to employ sanctions that target Tehran’s missile program as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Brussels for talks with European partners.

In this photo released on October 1, 2018, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a missile is fired from city of Kermanshah in western Iran targeting the Islamic State group in Syria. (Sepahnews via AP)

Hook said US discussions with the Europeans about missile sanctions are gaining traction. Those talks center on slapping penalties on companies and people involved in Iran’s program.

“It is a grave and escalating threat, and nations around the world, not just Europe, need to do everything they can to be targeting Iran’s missile program,” Hook said.

The United States decided in May to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran, to the dismay of its Europeans allies.

The nuclear deal provides for a lifting of sanctions against Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear activities.

The remaining five signatories to the nuclear deal — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — have backed an EU effort to set up a special payment system in a bid to maintain trade and business ties with Iran.

On Monday night, Pompeo told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a fierce critic of the deal, that the US was committed to “confronting the totality of the Iranian regime’s threats through maximum pressure,” during talks in Brussels on joint efforts to curb Iranian aggression in the region, including by reining in Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.

Netanyahu made an unexpected trip to Brussels on Monday afternoon to meet with Pompeo.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pictured in front of a menorah on the second night of the Hanukkah festival, during their meeting on the sidelines of a NATO conference in Brussels, Belgium, on December 3, 2018. (Gaby Farkash/GPO)

In a public statement before the closed door talks, Netanyahu thanked Pompeo for the administration’s “strong” stance on Iran, and said he looked forward to discussing joint Israeli-US efforts to “curb Iran’s aggression in the region, in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon and elsewhere.”

Netanyahu was reported to be telling Pompeo that Israel could take military action if Beirut does not clamp down on Hezbollah, amid concerns that Tehran has begun shipping advanced arms directly to the terror group in Lebanon.

The IDF’s announcement Tuesday morning of an operation against Hezbollah attack tunnels from Lebanese territory into Israel is not necessarily a clear indication of an escalation with the Shiite terror group. Except that an examination of the breadth of regional developments, including these tunnels and in particular Hezbollah’s Iran-backed factories for precision rockets, prompts a worrying conclusion: The next war between Israel and Hezbollah is already at the door.

Hezbollah, in the wake of the dwindling civil war in Syria, is a stronger organization than it was before the violence erupted there seven years ago. True, it suffered major losses, with about 2,000 of its fighters killed and four times that number wounded, as it battled against rebels on behalf of the Assad regime. But on the battlefield, Israel is now facing a more dangerous enemy, trained and practiced from a prolonged ground war.

The Lebanon-based terror group has began rehabilitating its abilities against Israel in a number of ways. First, in rocketry. Hezbollah had a vast number of rockets before the Syrian civil war erupted, although most of them were not accurate. Now, under Iranian guidance in Syria and Lebanon, it is working to change that.

The factories for producing accurate missiles that Hezbollah is working to establish, with the assistance of Iran’s Republican Guards Corps, will give the Shiite terror organization impressive capabilities to damage Israeli infrastructure, both military and civilian — the kind of damage that will make the 2006 conflict, when it last battled Israel and rained down rockets on the north of the country, look like a walk in the park.

The interior of what Israel says is an attack tunnel dug by the Hezbollah terror group that crossed into Israeli territory from south of the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila, December 4, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)

At the same time, Hezbollah is busy enlisting fresh fighters, training them, and equipping them with Iranian weapons and money.

In addition, the organization is engaged in setting up a military infrastructure on the Syrian Golan Heights, under the noses of, and with the agreement of, Syrian authorities, yet ignored by Russia.

In 2015, Israel allegedly hit Hezbollah senior commander Jihad Mughniyah, who was leading that project; apparently one of his brothers has taken over.

It now becomes clear that Hezbollah’s preparations for a land operation against Israeli, within the framework of the next war, did not cease even for a moment. The goal is not just directing heavy rocket fire at Israel but also attempting to take control of Israeli communities — scenarios that Hezbollah chiefs have called “conquering the Galilee.”

Like many others, I had heard endless explanations from senior and not-so-senior IDF officers that Hezbollah has no interest in tunnels because of the cost and difficulty of digging them in the northern terrain. The limestone bedrock is completely different from the sandy soil of the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas terror group has tunneled for years. It was also asserted that a ground operation launched under the cover of darkness, in the forested areas of the north, would be more effective and efficient than investing in tunnels. Residents in the north were told the same things by the IDF.

Yet Hezbollah plainly thought differently. With the wisdom of hindsight, it is hard to understand why it wouldn’t do just what it evidently has been doing. In the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the IDF discovered that the “nature reserves” Hezbollah had set up on the northern border included a network of tunnels, carved out in that difficult hilly territory — drilled through the limestone bedrock. Therefore, it was eminently reasonable to imagine that Hezbollah would try to build attack tunnels into Israel.

Members of Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah carry the coffin of a comrade who was killed in combat alongside Syrian government forces fighting against Islamic State group jihadists in Syria. (AFP PHOTO / MAHMOUD ZAYYAT)

Another relevant factor here is the departure of the Islamic State jihadist group from the Middle East arena, which has given Hezbollah more energy, resources, and motivation for a renewed confrontation with Israel. The extremist Sunni threat of IS has been almost completely wiped out; now it is possible to focus on efforts to harm Israel, under the close guidance of Iran. Hezbollah has taken over Lebanon and does whatever it wants there. Israeli threats to hit Lebanese infrastructure have made little impression on the group. It exists solely to serve its masters in Tehran.

A final point for consideration is that the IDF effort to uncover and counter the Hezbollah tunnels is not a military “operation” on the Lebanese home front. It is also not a daring commando raid. Rather, this is an engineering operation. True, it has the potential for escalation, but there does not seem to be a reason to worry about a war just because of an operation inside Israeli territory.

Which brings me, finally, to the Gaza Strip.

Even the imperative for the work at the northern border by the IDF’s engineering corps and other units does not constitute a real reason to allow the transfer of money — $15 million to be exact, in Qatari cash, every month — to the Hamas coffers, as was apparently agreed after last month’s clashes between Israel and Hamas. With that policy, Israel is buying not quiet but the next escalation. Not from the north, but from the south.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed to take additional steps, including clandestine operations, to protect Israel against Hezbollah’s efforts to attack the Jewish state, hours after IDF started a large-scale operation to destroy cross-border attack tunnels constructed by the Shiite terrorist organization.

“Anyone who tries to harm the State of Israel will pay a heavy price,” he said in a statement, his first public comment on Operation Northern Shield.

“We act with determination and responsibility in all areas simultaneously. We will continue with other actions, overt and covert, in order to ensure Israel’s security,” he said, adding that there had been early “successes” in the operation.

Netanyahu, who also serves as defense minister and foreign minister, returned to Israel from Brussels early on Tuesday, after a snap meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during which the two discussed the operation.

The prime minister told the US diplomat Monday said that the tunnels were “a flagrant violation of Israeli sovereignty and UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” according to a readout provided by Netanyahu’s office.

Netanyahu further told Pompeo that Tehran’s aggression also needed to be confronted in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pictured in front of a menorah on the second night of the Hanukkah festival, during their meeting on the sidelines of a NATO conference in Brussels, Belgium, on December 3, 2018. (Gaby Farkash/GPO)

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said Tuesday that Israel was not seeking war, and blamed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal for providing the Islamic Republic with cash that was used to help Hezbollah built its terror tunnels.

“Hezbollah is digging tunnels for terror purposes from Lebanon into Israel,” the ministry said in a statement, saying these acts constitute “a severe attack on Israel’s sovereignty” and violate UN Resolutions 1701, which ended the 2006 war with Hezbollah, and 1559, which called on Hezbollah to cease militant activity in 2004.

“Israel is conducting defensive actions within its sovereign territory. Israel has the right to defend itself and is not interested in escalation,” the ministry’s statement read.

Hezbollah has worked on “a broad expansion of its subterranean terror infrastructure” since the 2006 Lebanon War, the statement read, accusing the group of acting as Iran’s proxy.

“Hezbollah is building these terror tunnels in order to attack Israel, take Israeli citizens hostage and spread terror. Hezbollah’s tunnel project is another example of the dangerous strengthening of Hezbollah that is funded, supported and directed by Iran,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“Hezbollah has taken control of Lebanon and is pushing an Iranian agenda to turn that country into a base for attacks against Israel. Its actions harm Lebanon and threaten to make the tremendous investments of the international community worthless,” the statement went on.

The ministry said Iran was funding Hezbollah using money “billions of dollars it received as part of the nuclear deal,” referring to the 2015 accord that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on nuclear activity.

This picture taken on December 4, 2018 from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila shows a view of Israeli machinery operating behind the border wall in Israel (R). (Photo by Ali DIA / AFP)

The statement accused Hezbollah of committing “a double war crime” as it operates from “within Lebanon’s civilian population, in order to harm Israel’s civilian population.”

Israel holds the Lebanese government responsible for all activities conducted inside the country, the ministry said, but the tunnels’ existence proved that its army was not up to the task of making sure the terror group does not operate in southern Lebanon.

“Israel has been monitoring Hezbollah’s intentions and attack tunnel activities for years. The current operation will continue as necessary, along with construction of a northern border obstacle.”

The statement did not mention UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force also charged with keeping Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon.

However, the ministry instructed the Israeli mission to the United Nations to write to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in order to protest the “aggression from Lebanese territory,” ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon said.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani struck a defiant stance against US sanctions on Tuesday, renewing his threat to cut off international oil sales from the Gulf.

“America should know… it is not capable of preventing the export of Iran’s oil,” Rouhani said at a televised rally in Semnan province.

“If it ever tries to do so… no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf,” he added.

Since the 1980s, Iran has said repeatedly it would blockade the Gulf in response to international pressure but has never carried out the threat.

Washington has reimposed sanctions, including an oil embargo, since withdrawing from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers in May.

It has vowed to reduce Iran’s oil sales to zero, but has granted temporary waivers to eight countries.

Rouhani last threatened to close the Gulf in July when he warned the US “should not play with the lion’s tail.”

The president downplayed the economic impact of sanctions, accusing the media of exaggerating the country’s problems.

“No hyperinflation, no massive unemployment will threaten us. People should stop saying such things in the papers,” he told the crowd.

The latest inflation report from Iran’s central bank says food prices rose 56 percent year-on-year in October.

Rouhani acknowledged there were “some problems,” but said these would be addressed in the new budget plan to be presented on December 16.

He said the government would maintain subsidies on essential goods and increase public sector wages and pensions by 20 percent.

Rouhani, a relative moderate, last month called Israel a “cancerous tumor”established by Western countries to advance their interests in the Middle East.

The president said the United States cultivates close ties with “regional Muslim nations” to protect Israel, an apparent reference to Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s Sunni Arab allies. He said bowing to American pressure amounts to “treason.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

The Israeli military on Tuesday said it uncovered the “first of sure to be many” cross-border attack tunnels dug by the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group, this one from under a house in the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila, across from the Israeli town of Metulla.

This was the first tunnel that the Israel Defense Forces has said it discovered as part of a newly launched operation — Northern Shield — to find and destroy the offensive subterranean passages from Lebanon, which the army said are not yet operational and do not present an immediate threat to Israelis.

“At this time, having exposed the tunnel, IDF soldiers are conducting engineering and operational efforts before neutralizing it,” the army said in a statement.

Though for now the army’s activities are limited to the Israeli side of the Blue Line — the internationally recognized armistice line that acts as a de facto border between Israel and Lebanon — IDF Spokesperson Ronen Manelis indicated that other tunnels may be destroyed within Lebanon as well.

“We are prepared for all options, and the operation is only in its first day. The neutralizing of the tunnels will not necessarily take place within our territory,” he said.

The Israeli military dismissed allegations that the timing of Operation Northern Shield was tied to Israeli political developments, notably the recent calls by police to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“There’s no cynicism here,” Manelis said.

According to another IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, the specific timing of the launch of the operation was planned “over a very long period of time.”

The IDF said the “terror tunnel” originated under a Lebanese home in Kafr Kila and extended some 40 meters (130 feet) into Israeli territory.

The army said the tunnel was approximately 200 meters (650 feet) long, some 25 meters (80 feet) deep, and was two meters (six feet) tall by two meters (six feet) wide, significantly larger than most of the tunnels dug by the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

According to the IDF, the tunnel took over two years to excavate — due to the harsh terrain under the border — and contained electrical and communication lines as well as ventilation.

“Hezbollah has been using industrial equipment in order to dig these tunnels. We are beginning to assess and analyze the findings,” Conricus told reporters.

In a tweet in English, the army added that the tunnel was dug “with the intention of harming Israeli civilians.”

The army lauded itself for finding the tunnel. According to Conricus, Hezbollah’s program to build the underground infrastructure was kept “ultra secret” within the terrorist organization.

The IDF spokesman said the IDF’s effort to find and destroy Hezbollah’s tunnels was also kept on a need-to-know basis.

“It was deeply compartmentalized. Only a select few who needed to know were involved in this operation,” Conricus said.

An illustrative map provided by the IDF indicated that the tunnel entered Israeli territory between the communities of Metulla and Misgav Am.

“The tunnel crossed into Israeli territory, but did not present an immediate threat to residents of the area,” the army said.

Earlier, the military said it had found a number of tunnels that entered Israeli territory from Lebanon, but none of them were operational and therefore did not present an immediate danger to Israelis.

On Tuesday morning, the Israeli military launched Operation Northern Shield to uncover and destroy these tunnels. Conricus said the military was, for now, operating within Israeli territory and not entering Lebanon, where the tunnels originate.

“We see Hezbollah’s actions as a flagrant and blatant violation of Israeli sovereignty,” he said.

The military said it believed these tunnels were for offensive purposes, unlike the tunnels and underground bunkers used by Hezbollah during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which were primarily utilized as defensive measures.

“This was part of a surprise component of [Hezbollah’s] plan,” Conricus said.

According to the IDF, approximately seven years ago, Hezbollah created a special forces unit — known as the Radwan Unit — specifically tasked with crossing into Israel and causing as much mayhem and destruction as possible both for the sake of the damage to Israel itself and for the “symbolism” of having troops carry out attacks inside Israel.

Israeli military digger works on the border with Lebanon in the northern Israeli town of Metula, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018. The Israeli military launched an operation on Tuesday to “expose and thwart” tunnels built by the Hezbollah militant group it says stretch from Lebanon into northern Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Tuesday’s operation came as tensions on Israel’s northern border have ramped up in recent days, and hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Brussels for a meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss Iran and the Hezbollah tunnels.

Last Friday, the Lebanese terror group issued a warning video to Israel apparently filled with satellite images and precise map locations of strategic sites in the Jewish state, with a message: “Attack and you will regret it.”

A screenshot from a warning video issued by Hezbollah apparently showing satellite imagery of an Israeli airbase superimposed with a target and its map coordinates (Screenshot/Youtube)

The video was posted after an alleged Israeli airstrike on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria the night before.

The video, with Hebrew subtitles, opened with scenes of Hezbollah fighters preparing to launch rockets and leader Hassan Nasrallah warning that the Lebanese terror group would respond to any attack on Lebanon.

Israeli security chiefs were holding security assessments throughout the day Tuesday in order to deal with any possible Hezbollah reaction to the IDF operation.

The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson called on Hezbollah members and Lebanese citizens to keep away from the tunnels. “You’ve been warned,” he wrote on Twitter.

A spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL, which is meant to enforce UN Resolution 1701, told The Times of Israel that it was aware of the reports that the IDF was launching Operation Northern Shield and was maintaining contact with “all relevant interlocutors to ensure that the parties use the UNIFIL liaison and coordination mechanisms to maintain the continued calm and stability.”

“The situation in UNIFIL’s area of operation remains calm,” the UNIFIL spokesperson said.

Israel has long said that Hezbollah planned to conduct cross-border raids in any future conflict, with the specific goal of attacking and conquering a civilian town near the border. Northern residents have raised fears in recent years of attack tunnels being dug under the border, spurring the IDF to launch a task force to investigate the concerns in 2014.

“[Hezbollah’s] main goal is to kill as many people as they can in [Israeli] villages and army bases,” a senior officer IDF officer said earlier this year, in a briefing to reporters on the Lebanese border.

The IDF operation began in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning. The military declared the area around the community of Metulla a closed military zone, but gave no other special instructions to Israeli civilians in the area.

An Israeli construction vehicle drives by a concrete wall being built along the ‘Blue Line’ separating Israel and Lebanon, as members of the Lebanese Armed Forces watch from a guard tower, near the Israeli town of Rosh Hanikra on September 5, 2018. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)

Additional troops were deployed to northern Israel as a precaution against potential attacks by Hezbollah, but no reservists were called up.

Conricus would not comment on whether additional air defenses were deployed to the area as a precautionary measure as well. Hezbollah is believed to have an arsenal of over 100,000 rockets and missiles.

The attack tunnels were long rumored to have been dug from southern Lebanon into Israeli territory by the Iran backed terror group, but Israeli defense officials repeatedly either denied their existence or refused to discuss the matter.

Conricus said he could not elaborate on the number of tunnels or how deeply they penetrated into Israel, but said such information may be provided in the future.

The IDF spokesperson would not comment on how the military sought to destroy the alleged Hezbollah tunnels, but said it would use some of the techniques and technologies it employs in countering the attack tunnels dug into Israel from the Gaza Strip.

“It will take time to neutralize and expose all the tunnels,” the IDF spokesperson said.

Israeli government officials speculated that the operation would take several weeks.

This picture taken on December 4, 2018, from the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila shows a view of Israeli machinery operating behind the border wall in Israel (R). (Ali DIA / AFP)

The spokesperson said units from the IDF Northern Command, Military Intelligence, Combat Engineering Corps and Ministry of Defense were leading Operation Northern Shield.

In recent years, the Israeli military and Defense Ministry have been bolstering defenses along the Israeli-Lebanese border: setting up berms, clearing vegetation, creating artificial cliffs and building nine-meter-tall concrete walls.

Conricus blamed Iran for providing the funding and support for Hezbollah’s tunnel program. The Foreign Ministry later released a statement saying the money had come from cash freed up by the 2015 nuclear deal.

According to the IDF, the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group also provided Hezbollah with technical assistance, based on its extensive experience digging attack tunnels from the Strip into southern Israel.

A Hezbollah officer stands in front an IDF army position, background, as he explains to journalists about the defensive measures established by the Israeli forces, south Lebanon, April 20, 2017. (Hussein Malla/AP)

Conricus also accused the Lebanese government of failing to prevent Hezbollah from establishing a military presence in southern Lebanon, despite this being a violation of United Nations Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War and called for all armed groups besides the Lebanese military to remain north of the country’s Litani River.

The last 12 years have seen relative quiet along the frontier. However, Israeli officials have raised alarms over Iran arming Hezbollah, via Syria or directly into Lebanon, with precision missile technology.

On Monday, Netanyahu had reportedly told Pompeo to pass a message to Beirut that Israel would act militarily if it did not crack down on Hezbollah.

The prime minister told the US diplomat Monday said that the tunnels were “a flagrant violation of Israeli sovereignty and UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” according to a readout provided by Netanyahu’s office.

Netanyahu further told Pompeo that Tehran’s aggression also needed to be confronted in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.