BRUSSELS/JERUSALEM—‘’Israel has the right to safeguard the security of its citizens and territory,’’ said EU Ambassador to Israel Emanuele Giaufret in a tweet expressing support for Israel’s ‘’Operation Northern Shiled’’ aimed at exposing and neutralizing Hezbollah’s terror tunnels along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
In his tweet, Giaufret added that UNIFIL, the UN force in south Lebanon, ‘’has a key role to ensure stability and needs full support to fulfil its mandate to maintain stability and prevent escalation.’’
Earlier this week, representatives of Germany and the UK condemned Hezbollah for digging the terror tunnels into Israel. The UK’s statement also supported “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
On Wednesday, Russia backed Israel’s efforts to neutralize the terror tunnels, while urging Israel not to take military action inside Lebanon.
On Tuesday, US National Security Adviser John Bolton emphasized the US’ “strong support” for Israel in the operation, while calling on Iran and “its agents,” including Hezbollah, to “stop their regional aggression.”
“The US strongly supports Israel’s efforts to defend its sovereignty, and we call on Hezbollah to stop its tunneling into Israel and to refrain from escalation and violence,” Bolton said.
On Thursday,
He told the diplomats :”Today you can appreciate the effectiveness, the murderous effectiveness of this instrument of terror tunnels, which I want to zoom into in a minute. What we’re facing is one big enemy. That enemy is called Iran. Iran is trying to act on two levels. One, to develop a nuclear arsenal. We’re dealing with that with other means, including exposing Iran, as we did their secret nuclear archives and their secret nuclear warehouse inside Iran, Tehran, and other means.’’
‘’We think that Hezbollah should be designated in its entirety as a terror organization, which is what it is, and not make artificial splits between its supposed parts. Lebanon should be put on the list because they’re saying nothing about this. They’re allowing their territory to be used in an act of aggression against a neighboring state, and they allow their citizens to be used as pawns.,’’ he added.
He said that is putting Lebanon at risk, ‘’but Lebanon is saying nothing. They’re not even protesting. And they should, and they should be told that they would pay the consequences, that they’ll be held accountable for not even whispering a protest. They should be acting in every way possible to stop this. They’re not.’’