Image by getty images

In a statement that reaffirmed the seriousness of Hezbollah’s threats toward Israel, the Israeli army’s chief of staff said the Shi’ite militia was the biggest threat bordering on the Jewish state.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot spoke about Hezbollah Wednesday during a talk with teenagers in Bat Yam near Tel Aviv, Israel Radio reported.

“Around the State of Israel, Hezbollah is the organization with the most significant capabilities,” Eisenkot said, adding that, “The IDF is succeeding in generating deterrence and over the past decade, the Lebanon front is quiet.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Eisenkot’s statement about Hezbollah came one day after the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised statement that Hezbollah could cause “an effect like that of an atomic bomb” by targeting a chemical factory in the Haifa area.

Nasrallah, Eisenkot said, “over years has built up the ability to target with missiles centers of population in the Tel Aviv area and elsewhere.”

Since 2012, Hezbollah, a traditional ally of Syria’s embattled president Bashr Assad, has lost thousands of combatants in Syria and Iraq, where it is fighting Sunni militias determined to overthrow Assad.

Military analysts believe that the organization, which is thought to have no more than 20,000 active members, is too vulnerable to fight on two fronts, and has therefore refrained from engaging Israel even in retaliation to Israeli strikes aimed against it or its allies.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount