Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel\u2019s framework agreement with Lebanon on Saturday, saying the accord preserves Israel\u2019s military freedom of action, weakens Hezbollah and Iran, and creates new diplomatic opportunities, while using a wide-ranging press conference to address questions about the military campaign, domestic politics, and Israel\u2019s regional strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Opening the briefing, Netanyahu said Israel had withdrawn only from two pilot areas that the Israel Defense Forces determined were not operationally necessary and would remain in what he described as the \u201cyellow security zone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain in the yellow security zone that protects us, and that is a tremendous, tremendous achievement,\u201d he said, arguing that international pressure to remove Israeli forces from the area had failed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Netanyahu thanked President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, and the Israeli negotiating team, as well as the Lebanese government, for helping reach the agreement. He said Israel had \u201cdealt Hezbollah a severe blow\u201d and was \u201cbreaking not only Iran\u2019s axis of terror, but also its political axis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The prime minister said Hezbollah had possessed 150,000 rockets and missiles before the war and that Israel had destroyed about 90% of that arsenal, eliminated Hassan Nasrallah and the commanders of the Radwan Force, and killed more than 1,000 Hezbollah terrorists since the war began, including more than 200 during the past two weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Netanyahu also said Israeli forces had seized the Beaufort and the Ali al-Taher Ridge overlooking\u00a0Bint\u00a0Jbeil and continue destroying Hezbollah\u2019s infrastructure throughout the security zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are bunkers there, there are tunnels there, there\u00a0are terror villages there. We are\u00a0eliminating\u00a0all of it,\u201d he said, while adding that Israel still faces challenges, particularly the threat posed by explosive drones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first question came from Nadav Elimelech of i24NEWS, who asked whether the agreement limits Israel\u2019s operational freedom against Hezbollah and whether such operations could jeopardize the agreement. Elimelech also asked about legislation concerning ultra-Orthodox military service and Netanyahu\u2019s proposal for a broad national government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u00a0insisted\u00a0the military\u2019s instructions\u00a0remain\u00a0unchanged. \u201cIf you see a threat, act,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is not only the right to act\u2014it is the obligation to act against an immediate threat.\u201d He said the standing orders had recently resulted in the elimination of 200 terrorists and described an operation in which Israeli forces destroyed a building\u00a0containing\u00a0seven Hezbollah terrorists before they could attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Turning to domestic politics, Netanyahu argued that Israel must avoid internal divisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Menachem Begin said, \u2018No more civil war.\u2019 There will not be one here,\u201d he said, adding that he intends to\u00a0establish\u00a0\u201ca broad national government\u2014not a narrow government, not a left-wing government dependent on Arab parties.\u201d Netanyahu said any party willing to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, support individual rights, a free economy, technological advancement, and Israel\u2019s ability to defend itself would be welcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Responding to Elimelech\u2019s question on Haredi conscription, Netanyahu called for broad agreement on military service and judicial reform. He said arrests of Torah students inside yeshivas discourage enlistment, arguing that \u201cYoung Haredim want to enlist,\u201d but that such enforcement produces \u201cexactly the opposite\u201d result. At the same time, he said those not engaged in Torah study should remain subject to the full force of the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Channel 14 reporter Saria Herush asked how Israel would respond if Hezbollah violated the agreement and what assurances Israel had received from Lebanon and the United States that Hezbollah would be removed from southern Lebanon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Netanyahu replied that Israel\u2019s primary guarantee was its own military capability. \u201cThe moment they violate the agreement \u2026 we strike with great force,\u201d he said, adding that the Lebanese government\u2019s decision to sign the agreement was \u201ca very courageous move\u201d because it effectively told Hezbollah and Iran, \u201cWe are making peace with Israel.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also said support for the agreement had\u00a0emerged\u00a0among Lebanon\u2019s Christian, Druze, Muslim, and even some Shiite communities, while cautioning that Israel would judge the accord by Lebanon\u2019s actions. He said the Lebanese army must still reform itself because \u201cThere are jihadists within its ranks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ynet\u2019s Itamar Eichner challenged Netanyahu over comments by opposition lawmaker Gadi Eisenkot, who described Lebanon as \u201ca political graveyard for prime ministers,\u201d\u00a0and also\u00a0asked about government recognition of the Armenian Genocide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Netanyahu dismissed Eisenkot\u2019s criticism, arguing that following his advice would have meant stopping operations in Khan Yunis, avoiding Rafah, never entering Lebanon, and leaving Hamas and Hezbollah\u00a0largely intact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, you know what I say?\u00a0I\u2019ll\u00a0answer you in Yiddish,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cWho cares?\u201d He added that his decisions were guided by national security rather than political considerations and defended operations in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. On the Armenian Genocide, he responded, \u201cI did not block it, and I certainly support it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danny Zaken of Israel Hayom asked whether the Lebanon agreement conflicted with the US-Iran memorandum of understanding and which political parties Netanyahu hoped would join a future coalition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Netanyahu said Israel was not a party to the US-Iran agreement but would continue protecting its own interests. He announced plans to send a delegation to Washington to present Israel\u2019s position on Iran\u2019s nuclear program and said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had supported Israel\u2019s insistence on\u00a0maintaining\u00a0the security zone in southern Lebanon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked which parties he hoped to bring into government, Netanyahu said he would welcome anyone who accepted his core principles. He specifically rejected the creation of a Palestinian state \u201cbetween the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River,\u201d saying public opinion had shifted during the war. He also argued that most Israelis reject internal conflict and said a broad national consensus was necessary to capitalize on what he described as Israel\u2019s military victories in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Concluding the press conference, Netanyahu rejected criticism that Israel had failed to achieve\u00a0all of\u00a0its wartime\u00a0objectives, saying opponents who had advocated halting operations in Khan Yunis had been prepared to accept \u201czero\u201d achievements. \u201cYour government didn\u2019t achieve 100 percent; you only achieved 80 or 90 percent,\u201d he\u00a0said of\u00a0his critics. \u201cThat is a joke. It is simply not serious.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said Israel had removed the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, severely degraded Tehran\u2019s ballistic missile production, brought back\u00a0all of\u00a0the hostages from Gaza, dismantled most of Hamas\u2019 military capability, and transformed the strategic balance in Lebanon. Netanyahu concluded that those gains should now be preserved through a broad national government capable of addressing the remaining challenges and pursuing\u00a0additional\u00a0regional agreements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel\u2019s framework agreement with Lebanon on Saturday, saying the accord preserves Israel\u2019s military…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-514309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514309","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=514309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}