Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi after a meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz at the IDF’s Central Command headquarters in Jerusalem on March 30, 2022.
‘We will deal very big strikes in the war, but we will warn the residents and allow them to leave the areas’
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi on Sunday warned that overwhelming force would be used in Lebanon during the next potential war with Hezbollah.
Speaking at the first National Conference on the Home Front, Kochavi detailed the IDF’s strategy for responding to an attack from the radical Shiite terrorist group.
“We will deal very big strikes in the war, but we will warn the residents and allow them to leave the areas. I say to the residents of Lebanon: I advise you to leave, not only at the beginning of the war, but from the beginning of tension and before the first shot is fired. I advise you to leave those areas because the attack force will be unimaginable like you nothing you have witnessed before,” Kochavi said.
He said that the military would target rocket launchers inside homes and buildings, and would target buildings used as enemy headquarters.
“Every target associated with missiles and rockets will be targeted in the next war,” the military leader said.
“A house in which a missile is located or located near a missile, an activist who deals with a missile, a command headquarters that deals with a missile, or electricity connected to a group of missiles – all of this network will be hit on the day of the war.”
He said that the IDF pinpointed thousands of targets in Lebanon to destroy in the event of a war, including Hezbollah headquarters, rocket-propelled grenades, and launchers.
Kochavi said that the biggest threat that Israel faces is the nuclear threat and simultaneous missile attacks from all fronts.
Big talk. If war comes, I hope this talk will be matched with equally big action.