Israeli Ambassador Says No 'Hidden' Goals In Northern Shield Operation

Israeli Ambassador Says No 'Hidden' Goals in Northern Shield Operation

Israel is not pursuing any "hidden agenda" in respect to Lebanon by carrying out the Northern Shield operation, whixh solely aims to find and destroy Hezbollah cross-border tunnels, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Gary Koren told Sputnik on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th December, 2018) Israel is not pursuing any "hidden agenda" in respect to Lebanon by carrying out the Northern Shield operation, whixh solely aims to find and destroy Hezbollah cross-border tunnels, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Gary Koren told Sputnik on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus announced that the Israeli army was launching the Northern Shield operation at the Israeli-Lebanese border in order to find and destroy cross-border tunnels of the Hezbollah movement.

"The tunnel that was discovered by our army in the north of Israel today infiltrates Israel's territory by tens of meters. Hezbollah's goals were clearly aggressive and we could no longer tolerate it. How long the operation will continue, I cannot say. We are searching for the tunnels, I emphasize, on our territory," Koren said.

"We have no plans other than the destruction of infiltration tunnels. We hope that the other side [Lebanon] will not react aggressively to our actions," the ambassador stressed.