The Lebanese army said it uncovered 20 rocket launchers near its border with Israel on Monday where Iran-backed Hezbollah has exchanged fire repeatedly with Israeli forces in recent days — stoking fears that the war could spread to a new front.
Four of the rocket launchers were already loaded with missiles and were ready to be fired when they were discovered in the Lebanese border towns of Qalila and Al-Sha’iyat, the army said, adding that specialized units had quickly worked to dismantle them.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, also warned the terror group Monday to keep out of the escalating war with Hamas or pay the price.
The discovery of the missile launchers came as Israel, who is prepped for an imminent ground invasion of Gaza in the south to root out Hamas terrorists, started evacuating residents in dozens of villages close to its northern border with Lebanon.
“Don’t test us in the north,” Netanyahu said Monday as he threatened Hezbollah and their Iranian backers they would pay a high price if they became embroiled in the war.
“Don’t make the mistake of the past. Today, the price you will pay will be far heavier,” he added, referring to Israel’s bitter monthlong war with Hezbollah in 2006.
Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israelis, tensions have been on the rise along the Lebanon-Israel border.
The clashes this last week have been the deadliest in the Lebanon border area since the 2006 war.
Hezbollah fighters have already fired anti-tank missiles on Israeli army positions and Israeli troops have retaliated by shelling areas on the Lebanese side of the border.
Israel considers the powerful Iran-backed Shiite militant group its most serious immediate threat, estimating that Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel.
Hezbollah’s military media arm said Monday it had also started shooting at and destroying surveillance cameras on five Israeli army posts along the border, including one outside the Israeli town of Metula.
The group appears to want to prevent the Israeli army from monitoring movements on the Lebanese side of the border after days of fire exchange that left at least seven people dead, including four Hezbollah fighters.
Meanwhile, in the biggest sign yet that the war could spread to a bloody new front, Israel ordered the evacuation of 28 villages in a 1.2-mile-deep zone near the Lebanese border after an exchange of rocket fire on Sunday that wounded at least four civilians.
The civilians were to be put up in “state-funded guesthouses” in towns in the center of Israel, the military said.
The Israeli military on Monday accused Iran of having ordered the attacks by Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah carried out a number of shooting attacks in order to distract from our war efforts in the south (Gaza), under Iranian instruction and with (Iranian) support,” chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
“We have increased our forces on the northern border, and respond aggressively to any activity against us.
“If Hezbollah dares to test us, the reaction will be deadly,” he continued, adding: “The United States is giving us full backing.”
Hezbollah has previously said the increased strikes were a warning and didn’t mean the group had decided to go to war.
But Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah said Sunday that the group is ready for all possibilities adding, “we don’t want to reveal what the next step is.”
He said Hezbollah’s next step “is tied to what is going on in Gaza.”
With Post wires
