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New Head of Israel's Northern Command: Terror Groups Could Join Hizbullah

The incoming head of Israel's Northern Command, Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, has warned that terrorist groups could join Hizbullah and Iran in carrying out attacks on the Jewish State.

“The radical axis of Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, which operated for many years to harm the state of Israel, may be joined by the threat of terror organizations that possess an extremist ideology and can change their goals and begin targeting the state of Israel,” Kochavi said on Sunday.

“The Northern Command is at the center of the storm raging in the Middle East, and in the North we can see a concentration of the different processes that are affecting the region and the world,” he said as he accepted his position from outgoing chief Maj. Gen. Yair Golan.

“This area shows the struggle between religions, ethnicities and superpowers and it reflects a region that has become more disintegrated, less controlled, and more Islamist and violent,” Kochavi said.

He added: “All of these issues promise a continued instability in the area.”

Also over the weekend, Israel's Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said that the Gaza Strip is not the only front troubling Israel, and that the Jewish state's other enemies - such as Hizbullah - would do well to learn from the capabilities demonstrated by the Israeli army in the recent campaign.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan “Nasrallah sees that the Israeli society didn't break apart and was ready to pay the price (in Gaza), and that we know to do in Lebanon what we did in Gaza," he warned.

G.K.

H.K.


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