Israel vows to return Lebanon to ‘Stone Age’: “We have the ability to use a Doomsday Weapon”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was prepared to send Lebanon back to the “Stone Age” with a massive bombing campaign. The White House desperately tries to avert a major war in the Middle East but is not making progress.

After three days of meetings with top officials in Washington, Gallant told reporters that Israel preferred diplomacy but was also willing to utterly destroy Lebanon. “We do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario. Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict massive damage in Lebanon if a war is launched,” he said. Israel could bomb “Lebanon back to the Stone Age, but we don’t want to do it.”

Gallant’s remarks come as daily tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel risk escalating into a major war that could see the US, Iran, and other militias across the Middle East enter the fray. After announcing it had “operational plans” ready for an attack, Israel has started to move some military assets from near Gaza to its northern border.

The White House has invested considerable effort into bringing the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza to a close. However, rather than applying pressure on Tel Aviv to deescalate, Washington has tried to force Hezbollah and Hamas to accept Israeli demands. Last week, American officials told Beirut that Washington was unable to constrain Tel Aviv, in hopes the warning would convince Hezbollah to back down.

While US officials claim their diplomatic efforts are not stalled, an increasing number of countries worry war will break out and are asking their citizens to leave Lebanon.

Hezbollah maintains that it will end operations against Israel once the onslaught in Gaza comes to a close. Israel says it will not stop attacks on Lebanon until Hezbollah withdraws several miles from the border. Tel Aviv has decimated southern Lebanon, turning much of the area within three miles of the border into a “dead zone.”

Now, the Biden administration’s tactics have flipped, with officials telling reporters that the deal to end the fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border must be separate from any Gaza ceasefire. “The logic of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah… is that it is all tied to Gaza, and until there is a cease-fire in Gaza the firing at Israel won’t stop,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a senior Biden official. “We frankly, completely reject this logic.”

Israeli soldier

An Israeli aviation industry official stated that Tel Aviv possesses the capability to “break the equation” by deploying what he termed “doomsday weapons” if faced with an existential threat in the region, Israeli media reported.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv quoted Yair Katz, Chairman of the Israel Aerospace Industry Workers’ Council, who said that resorting to “breaking the equation” would be an option if Iran, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries decide to confront Israel.

“We have the ability to use a doomsday weapon,” Katz reportedly said.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Israeli Aviation Industry, Yair Katz: "If Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, & Yemen decide to settle their scores with Israel, Tel Aviv has the ability to use doomsday weapons & destroy everyone once and for all."

Katz highlighted the significant role of Israel’s Western allies, stating, “The Americans, the British, and the Germans are assisting us in the intelligence aspect.”

“They know how to alert us about movements that could endanger us. Even though we have the means to identify these threats ourselves from space, their help is important,” he reportedly added.

Observers interpreted Katz’s reference to doomsday weapons as the potential use of nuclear weapons.

Katz also noted the role of allies in helping to counter an Iranian attack on Israel, mentioning that Israeli engineers and workers “prepared for this scenario for several weeks.”

This is not the first time an Israeli official has mentioned the possibility of using nuclear weapons.

In November, Amichai Eliyahu, the Minister of Heritage in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, along with other extremist officials, called for the use of a nuclear bomb in the war on the Gaza Strip.

According to Haaretz, Eliyahu made the comments during a radio interview, maintaining that “there are no non-combatants in Gaza”. He added that providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute “a failure.”

When asked whether a nuclear attack on Gaza was an option, Eliyahu responded “That’s one way”, Haaretz reported.

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