According to a top military aide of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the Republic’s proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon has 80,000 rockets poised and ready to fire on Israel should the Jewish state carry out a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

By way of a response, of sorts, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said at a Jerusalem conference that Israel would need to defend itself by harming Lebanese citizens if she is attacked.

Accordingly, Ya’alon is quoted as saying, “We are going to hurt Lebanese civilians to include kids of the family. We went through a very long deep discussion … we did it then, we did it in [the] Gaza Strip, we are going to do it in any round of hostilities in the future.”

Those comments were, of course, totally taken out of the context of the bigger picture of the Defense Minister’s speech.

As such, his comments were made when discussing the issue of dealing with rocket launchers, which are purposely situated in the homes of civilians. As Ya’alon said, “If we don’t intercept the rocket-launchers in advance, civilians will be hurt, if not killed. If we hit the launchers, it will hurt or kill Lebanese civilians.”

For his part, Safavi threatened Israel once again, and in no uncertain terms, claiming, “the Zionists and the US are aware of the power of Iran and Hezbollah, and they know that over 80,000 (Iranian) missiles are ready to rain down on Tel Aviv and Haifa.”

He added, “We have displayed part of our military capabilities while we have kept many of our achievements and capabilities hidden to outsiders.”

Iran, who carry much weight in the UN, also threatened Israel via their envoy Gholam Ali Khoshrou, who said as follows.

“Moshe Ya’alon’s recent remarks and the Zionist official’s implied reference to the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic like what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and also his threats against the Lebanese civilians, including the women and children, shows more than ever the regime’s aggressive nature.”

[Image credit: imgarcade.com]