{"id":322490,"date":"2026-03-05T03:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322490\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:41:10","slug":"yoaz-hendel-israel-must-demilitarize-hezbollah-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322490\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoaz Hendel: Israel must demilitarize Hezbollah now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel can no longer rely on passive defense along its northern border and must seize the opportunity during Operation Roaring Lion<\/a> to fully demilitarize Hezbollah and assert military control inside Lebanon, Reservist Party leader and former communications minister Yoaz Hendel told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah<\/a> joined Iran in the ongoing conflict on Monday, firing toward Israel and leading to Israeli retaliation. This reignited tensions between Lebanon and Israel after the 2024 ceasefire deal between the two countries, which had been kept relatively intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael can’t sit passively, we need a proactive strategy,\u201d Hendel told the Post, warning that failing to come up with one could cause the repetition of the mistakes that led to the October 7 Hamas attacks in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe great failure happened because we didn\u2019t move the decisive fight into the enemy\u2019s territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hendel is a battalion commander in the IDF reserves. While serving, he participated in numerous military operations, such as Israel\u2019s war against Hamas and in the Second Lebanon War.<\/p>\n

\"ReservistReservist Party leader and former communications minister Yoaz Hendel serving in the IDF. (credit: Courtesy)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the great hope is that if the broader operation succeeds and the regime in Iran is replaced, there\u2019s a good chance Lebanon will lose its incentive to be a proxy or spear pointed at Israel,\u201d Hendel said about Operation Roaring Lion<\/a> and military action against Hezbollah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThen perhaps Lebanon could become a free state managing reasonable relations with Israel, not necessarily peace, but reasonable relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is an opportunity to stabilize the situation with a control line that includes two empty kilometers of population-free area along our border, complete demilitarization up to the Litani River, and Israeli forces present, possibly through rotating entries and exits, and certainly in high controlling positions,\u201d Hendel said.<\/p>\n

Biggest failure from Oct. 7: Not transferring decisive battle to enemy territory<\/p>\n

The Reservist Party leader spoke on taking lessons from failures during the October 7 Hamas massacre in 2023 and implementing them amid the escalation with Lebanon to prevent such attacks from recurring in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe central lesson from October 7, the biggest failure that happened to us, was not transferring the decisive battle to enemy territory. For many years, we relied on passive defense, with an approach – not just rhetoric but actual policy – of containing the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding Israel’s last ceasefire agreement with Lebanon in 2024, Hendel said that while the round of fighting ended with an agreement talking about demilitarization in southern Lebanon and without Hezbollah\u2019s presence, \u201cin practice, we gave up almost all our assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have only a few forward positions, and they\u2019re very close to Israeli territory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He noted that from personal experience in his time serving in Lebanon, when he stood on the hilltops, it was possible to see Hezbollah’s control.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdd to that the enormous quantity of weapons they stored, in Shi\u2019ite villages right along our border and in underground warehouses, and you understand they had a plan to conquer the Galilee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could have made us pay a very heavy price,\u201d Hendel remarked.<\/p>\n

Israeli residents living on Lebanon\u2019s border will not be evacuated from their homes during Operation Roaring Lion<\/a>, amid escalating tensions on the Lebanese border.<\/p>\n

Hendel told the Post it was good that the government was not evacuating residents from their homes again.<\/p>\n

Communities along Israel\u2019s northern border were severely affected in the aftermath of October 7 and throughout the ensuing war. Hundreds of thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes during Israel\u2019s last conflict with Hezbollah as the area came under continuous rocket fire. The area has still not recovered from the damage it sustained.<\/p>\n

Hendel noted that Israel had already seen the consequences of a massive evacuation in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad they [the residents] are staying. That obligates the IDF to go deeper into enemy territory and fight,\u201d Hendel explained.<\/p>\n

Hendel\u2019s Reservists Party comprises reserve soldiers, their families, wounded IDF veterans, bereaved families, and civilian volunteers. It positions itself as a response to the leadership vacuum that followed the October 7 attacks and calls for universal conscription. The party registered itself officially in September.<\/p>\n

Since the start of the Operation Rising Lion against Iran, party members have stepped aside from the political sphere and returned to reserves.<\/p>\n

Hendel told the Post he would also be joining the reserve duty as well this week.<\/p>\n

When asked what it is like to run the party while members are in reserves, Hendel explained that \u201cit\u2019s part of the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were managing a political struggle, and now we\u2019re putting everything aside and mobilizing. We\u2019re determined to win this war, giving full backing to the army and government; afterward, we\u2019ll continue the political debate as citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Hendel said balancing serving in reserves and working in the political sphere was hard, he also asserted that, currently, the \u201cmost important mission right now is the State of Israel.”<\/p>\n

Regarding the war with Iran, Hendel expressed his belief that the world was in the midst of a \u201ctectonic shift in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it [the operation] succeeds, it could bring much greater stability and reduce bloodshed for decades. There\u2019s a historic role here for Israel and the United States in shaping the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut alongside the opportunity, there\u2019s risk. We can\u2019t assume it will look like previous operations. We must be ready for bigger challenges,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel can no longer rely on passive defense along its northern border and must seize the opportunity during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[86,102448,70669,85,46,954,43,69828,140564],"class_list":{"0":"post-322490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-hezbollah","9":"tag-hezbollah-iran","10":"tag-idf-reserves","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israeli-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-reservists","16":"tag-yoaz-hendel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}