The israeli army will show ‘no restraint’ in attacking civilian centers in south Lebanon
BEIRUT: The Israeli army will show ‘no restraint’ in attacking civilian centers in south Lebanon and Beirut should another war break out with Hezbollah, a senior Israeli military official told the German Die Zeit newspaper.
Israeli Air Force chief Major-General Amir Eshel warned Hezbollahin a recent interview picked up by The Jerusalem Post Saturday that Israel would not hesitate to attack military command centers situated in civilian buildings in Lebanon.
“[The Israeli Army] would not show restraint due to the immoral war tactics of our enemies,” he noted.
“Years ago, they (Hezbollah) began to transfer military infrastructure to residential areas, thereby turning the population into a human shield,” Eshel said, reiterating recent claims made by several Israeli officials.
“Many villages in Lebanon are built anew to turn into army bases with underground missile sites and ammunition storages. This is how things are in some areas of Beirut as well,” he added.
“What are we supposed to do? Sit quietly?”
The Israeli military official said that the Israeli army would use various means to warn civilians about impeding attacks, including sending text messages in order to give them a chance to seek shelter in a safe area.
“We will also warn civilians by using small light explosives prior to an attack,” Eshel said.
The controversial practice of firing a small mortar onto the roof a building to warn of an impeding missile strike, known as “roof-knocking,” was a widely employed Israeli tactic during the 2014 Gaza War, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed, most of whom were civilians.
Eshel’s comments comes less than a month after an Israeli military official claimed that Israel would seek to evacuate south Lebanon of more than one million people – roughly the entire population – should another war break out with Hezbollah.
Israel killed about 1,200 people during its 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the overwhelming majority of them civilians.
The report appeared to respond to a widely-criticized New York Times story published last month citing Israeli officials who accused Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields and suggesting that “many Lebanese civilians will probably be killed [in a future war], and that it should not be considered Israel’s fault.”
In a 2008 interview, then-Israeli Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, who is now Israel’s military chief, declared that if a new war with Hezbollah was to erupt, “what happened in the Dahiyeh quarter in Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on.”
Dahiyeh refers to the southern suburbs of Beirut which were reduced to rubble during the 2006 war.
The Daily Star
Fonte: Http://Www.Dailystar.Com.Lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Jun-21/303101-No-Restraint-In-Next-Lebanon-War-Israeli-General.Ashx?Utm_medium=Email&Utm_source=Transactional&Utm_campaign=Newsletter
