JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel Defense Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis called out Lebanon for allowing Iran to build a precision weapons factory on its territory.
Manelis warned in the Op-Ed written in Arabic and published on a Lebanese opposition website that war between Lebanon and Israel could again break out over Lebanon’s red carpet to Iran.
“Lebanon has become – both by its own actions and omissions and by a blind eye from many members of the international community – one large missile factory,” Manelis wrote on the Ahewar website, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“It’s no longer a transfer of arms, funds or consultation. Iran has de-facto opened a new branch, the ‘Lebanon branch.’ Iran is here,” he also wrote.
He charged that Hezbollah has taken over control of the state, building a terror infrastructure and weapons factories.
He added that one in every three or four houses in southern Lebanon is a Hezbollah hideout or weapons depot, and that Israel knows how to accurately strike them.
“The future of Lebanese citizens is in the hands of a dictator who sits in Tehran. I think it is right to warn the residents of Lebanon of the Iranian game in their security and in their future,” he also wrote.
In addition to the Ahewar opposition website, the article also appeared on Voice of Beirut, Sputnik and Israel radio’s public Arabic broadcaster.
Israel has in the past threatened to bomb Iranian arms plants in Lebanon, Haaretz reported. In recent months it has attacked convoys of arms being transported from Syria to Lebanon.
