"Time For Hezbollah To Pay A Dear Price" Israeli Ambassador Reuven Azar Speaks To India Today

New Delhi,UPDATED: Sep 26, 2024 11:28 IST

As the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) pound Lebanon with air strikes targeting Hezbollah infrastructure resulting in massive causalities, there is concern around the globe about this war eventually spiralling out to the entire West Asia. The indications can't be more clear than this. Israel Defence Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi has confirmed the military’s preparations for a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. To dig deeper for the benefit of our readers, India Today spoke exclusively to Israel's Ambassador to India, Reuven Azar. Reuven Azar, a career diplomat who has served extensively in West Asia, breaks down Israel's strategy and the reasoning behind operations against Hamas and Hezbollah.

The northern front of Israel is where all the action is right now....there are very serious things happening there. The airstrikes that have taken place in the last 48 to 72 hours are said to be aimed at completely debilitating Hezbollah...How is that going...585 killed, and at least 2000 people were injured. Is Israel achieving what it is setting out to do?

Amb. Reuven Azar: Israel is trying to achieve a ceasefire. For the last 11 months, Hezbollah in an unprovoked way attacked Israel on the 8th of October. The aim of our policy is to implement UN Security Resolution 1701 which states very clearly that Hezbollah is not allowed to deploy on the Israeli border. If Hezbollah agrees to that then there will be no war. There would be an immediate ceasefire but unfortunately, what is happening in the last few months despite diplomatic efforts led by the United States this is not happening and we have evacuated 70,000 thousand people out of their homes in Israel as a result of these Hezbollah attacks. We are determined to achieve our goals. Our people want to go back to our homes and in order to achieve that we are now employing more force. We targeted 1700 military targets, most of them inside homes in villages in South Lebanon to which Hezbollah introduced weapons and missiles breaching international law using in an immoral way. The fact there are civilians there in order to conceal weapons. We have gathered that intelligence and actually before we started we encouraged all the people living there or near those places to evacuate immediately. This came in telephone calls, fliers, and radio transmissions. Thanks to that, the number of causalities is pretty low compared to the numbers of the target that we have targeted.

When the Israeli PM and the government have called for the evacuation of civilians aren't these people by Israel's own claim being held there against their will as human shields? Where are they to go if they are asked to evacuate if they are being oppressed by Hezbollah as the Israeli government claims?

Amb. Reuven Azar: Unlike the Gaza situation which Hamas actually shot at people at gunpoint and tried to prevent the evacuation here you have a different situation because the territory of southern Lebanon is wider and we have seen tens of thousands of people according to the reports of Lebanese government already half a million people actually have been evacuating from these areas which is a positive thing if we want to avoid civilian causalities but we are determined to restore peace to our region and therefore these capabilities that were built with Iranian support, with financial support, with training, with transfer of technology has to stop. Israeli public is united in the decision to do whatever it takes to remove this threat. This could stop tomorrow or even today if Hezbollah commits and the Lebanese government commits to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Iranian proxies have been mounting concerted attacks, especially in the northern part of Israel... What was the trigger point now for this sudden shift in Israeli might towards southern Lebanon?

Amb.Reuven Azar: First of all on the 7th of October we couldn't deal simultaneously with all the threats. We have a strong army but it's not that big....We had to organize ourselves. We had to deal first with the threat coming from Gaza and we did that. So in Gaza, we have a situation today in which most of the threats the missile factories, and the stockpiles are dealt with. THE HAMAS ARMY IS DEFEATED. They still have sporadic terrorist attacks on our forces basically militarily we have done the job. We created a buffer zone so Hamas can not attack Israel...It's a problem for them to contraband weapons from the Sinai because we are sealing the border. Once we had done that we had the time to reorganize and to plan what we are going to do in the north. Before we started we actually tried again to create a situation because we know that the price of a war is terrible and the loss of every life is tragic. Our job as a country responsible for the lives of its citizens we have the duty to protect them but we have to do whatever we can in order to avoid violence. We waited for 11 months and now it's time for the other side to understand that if they continue this they are going to pay a dear price.

Could there be a ground invasion in Lebanon?

Amb. Reuven Azar: We are preparing for all scenarios. The IDF forces have operative plans. We have recruited the necessary personnel and we are completely ready to do that. We prefer not to do that. We don't want to escalate it to a full-fledged war but if don't have any choice we will have to do it because we have to create a situation in which our citizen can live in peace in their homes.

After the assassination of Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran there had been almost a kind of suspense, a tension around the region and globally about how Iran was going to hit back. A direct attack of any kind or what was perhaps people's mind that hasn't happened yet. What is Israel's assessment of that.

Amb. Reuven Azar: It hasn't happened. I think for good reason. The last time when Iran attacked us with a barrage of 300 missiles, rockets, drones and ballistic missiles was on the 13th of April and that barrage was successfully foiled by Israel and its partners in the region including the Arab States, the United States and other western armies. The Iranians understood what our capabilities are and although we haven't retaliated in a massive. We have shown in a very targeted way what our capabilities are. I think the Iranians are going to make a huge mistake if they decide to involve themselves here again and we are ready for that scenario is well.

It looks like this is a precursor to a larger operation and these airstrikes might continue. Is there some kind of an endpoint as far as these operations in the north are concerned?

Amb.Reuven Azar: We have to restore the deterrence that was breached. Since 2006 Hezbollah refrained from shooting at our country and they decided to change that policy. They made a huge mistake. They thought Israel was vulnerable. They have accumulated all these weapons around Israel. Not only in the Gaza Strip but in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Iranians thought they could successfully choke the state of Israel. They were mistaken. Unfortunately, this kind of miscalculation creates conflicts. The responsibility for all these dead people is on the shoulders of Iranians. We have a responsibility together with our partners in the Arab World and countries that are friendly to the cause. We have a responsibility to restore peace, to create a security regime that will be sustainable for the future so that we don't have to deal with these kinds of threats in the coming future.

Written by Satyendra Kumar Kanojia