IDF: Iran Missile Factories in Lebanon Eliminated

YERUSHALAYIM

Iran no longer has missile factories in Lebanon, IDF Spokesman Ronen Manelis told Kol BaRama radio on Sunday.

Brig. Gen. Manelis said that “the sites to which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pointed to when he was speaking at the U.N. are no longer active.”

Meanwhile on Sunday, outgoing IDF chief Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot defended the army’s record under his leadership, saying that they have succeeded in thwarting Iran’s agenda to establish a major military presence in Syria, The Times of Israel reported.

Israel prevented the Islamic Republic from bringing 100,000 fighters into that country, he said, in remarks at a conference at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Eisenkot, who concludes his four-year tenure next month, acknowledged that the IDF had failed to give Israelis, especially those living near Gaza, a “feeling of security,” but that this was in part due to the fact that the civilian population is unaware of most of the military’s activities.

The terror attacks that are known about are merely the tip of the iceberg, Eisenkot said, while “what isn’t seen, and which takes much of the army’s effort, is the multi-dimensional threat of Iran.”

The army chief disputed critics who claim that Israel has lost much of its deterrence, evinced by a recent string of terror incidents.

“Israel has great deterrence toward our surroundings, in terms of the way we radiate power and in how we are seen by our enemies. Israel has intelligence superiority, aerial superiority, naval superiority, cybernetic superiority. [The country’s enemies] experience this,” he said.

Without elaborating, Eisenkot also added that Israel played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State terror group.

“The Israeli contribution to the defeat of IS is much greater than what the media and the public eye see. I can say this today. I didn’t think it was right to say that in 2015, 2016 or 2017,” he said.

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