Benjamin Netanyahu: IDF to remain in Lebanon Security Zone until Hezbollah threat ends

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the IDF will stay in the security zone within Lebanon until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat to Israel during a visit to soldiers serving in the area on Tuesday.If soldiers recognize a threat, they are instructed to act to remove it, Netanyahu said.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and senior IDF commanders visit soldiers in Lebanon Security Zone, June 30, 2026. (CREDIT: VIDEO: OMER MIRON/GPO SOUND: BEN PERETZ/GPO)Netanyahu was accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, National Security Advisor Shmuel Ben-Ezra, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Tamir Yadai, and the premier's Military Secretary Maj.-Gen. Guy Markizeno. They received briefings from IDF Northern Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Rafi Milo, 91st Division Chief Brig.-Gen. Yuval Gez, and other brigade commanders serving in the security zone.“We are very proud of what we have achieved here thanks to your brave actions, and also the decisions made. Our insistence is that we do not leave southern Lebanon until the threat is neutralized. As long as Hezbollah is here, armed, threatening us, we will remain,” the prime minister said to the soldiers present.“You have done huge work here; we have taken the Iranian axis and begun to crush it. We attacked Iran itself, something no one believed, and we removed an existential threat,” Netanyahu told them.Netanyahu: 'Hezbollah was most important link in Iran's axis'“The most important link in the Iranian axis was here: Hezbollah,” he added.The Lebanese terror group possessed “150,000 missiles and rockets, which is the densest concentration of missiles and rockets on Earth,” he said.Out of these, 8% remain today, he added, saying that this was “still significant, but it is no longer what it was.”Netanyahu also noted how the IDF operations in Lebanon have killed 9,000 terrorists, including “hundreds in recent weeks.”“Of course, the main thing we did – and this is what you are doing here – is to create buffer zones [and] security zones on their side of the border,” he added.“We are doing this in Lebanon, [just as] we did it in Gaza,” he stated.“These security zones are a change in perception,” Netanyahu explained. “It means we do not allow a terrorist army to sit on our border. We push them away – that is what you are doing, and we destroy everything above and underground that served them essentially as a means of attacking us.”“The most important thing you should know. First of all, our instruction, mine, the defense minister's, the IDF chief, and deputy chief of staff: is to protect yourselves. If you identify a threat to your security, to your life, to your soldiers – act. Do not wait. Act – this is an ironclad instruction,” he said.Netanyahu claims Israel-Lebanon recognition progress due to IDF achievements“Because of what your actions achieved, Lebanon recognizes Israel, and Israel recognizes Lebanon,” he said.“We also say to Iran and to Hezbollah: leave! You have nothing to do here! We are two sovereign states wanting to make peace, to truly return security and prosperity to the residents of the North and of Lebanon. You must leave!” he stated.“This is a slap in the face, a punch in the face of the Iranian axis, and it will not necessarily pass quietly,” he warned.The briefing also included showing Netanyahu and Katz a display of ammunition and innovative weapons aiming to deal with the threat of Hezbollah's first-person view (FPV) drones.