Israeli defense minister threatens: choose fire, be burned

BEIRUT — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz threatened Lebanon on Tuesday, warning that if its leaders “choose the path of fire, they will be hurt and badly burned,” in a tweet, adding, "We are ready in all dimensions — by air, sea, land and cyber." 

Here’s what we know:

    • “Our eyes are on the crisis in Lebanon, which affects civilians,” Gantz wrote on Twitter. He added that if the Lebanese state and its leaders “choose the path of stability, they will help the Lebanese citizens.” 

    • This comes nearly a week after Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah threatened Israel with war amid heightened tensions over the delineation of the maritime border between the two countries.

    • The minister said he visited Israel’s northern border with Lebanon on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid. “We conducted an assessment of the situation of operations and a dialogue with the commanders of the sector,” Gantz said.

    • For his part, Lapid also said in a tweet that Israel is not yet facing any threats, but, “anyone who tries to undermine [Israeli’s] sovereignty or the citizens of Israel will immediately discover that they made a grave mistake.” Lapid added that “Hezbollah's aggression is unacceptable and could lead the entire region to an unnecessary escalation, especially since Lebanon has a real opportunity to develop its energy resources.”

    • Last week, Hezbollah's chief warned that the three unarmed drones sent by his party towards the offshore Karish gas field early July “are only a modest start,” threatening Israel with war. Nasrallah added that his party is “militarily and financially capable of preventing [Israel] from extracting [gas] from the disputed Karish field and all [Israel’s] measures will not be capable of protecting its floating platform.”

    • The Israeli army intercepted and shot down a drone Monday that was launched from Lebanon across the southern border and is allegedly “linked to Hezbollah,” an Israeli army spokesperson said in a tweet. A Hezbollah spokesperson told L’Orient Today that Hezbollah has no information about the incident.