Netanyahu Does Not Expect War, Israelis Urged Not to Go to Sinai
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that "no winds of war are blowing" along the Jewish state”s border with southern Lebanon.
"We do not see anything special up there," Netanyahu told reporters during a visit to the Hatzerim Air Force base, east of Beersheba.
"There are no winds of war blowing. This is a storm created by the media."
Netanyahu was accompanied by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and IAF commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan.
Netanyahu”s remarks came a day after he said Israel would hold the Lebanese government responsible for any attacks on Israeli targets by Hizbullah. He said the government in Beirut could not turn a blind eye to Hizbullah”s activities while the group sits in the Lebanese parliament and plays a major role in the country”s politics.
Also Tuesday, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman urged rival political factions to close ranks and speed up the formation of a national unity government to face Israeli threats against Lebanon.
Suleiman said that "the Israeli threats, repeated almost on a daily basis recently, expose the enemy government”s tendentious intentions toward Lebanon."
They "call on us to work seriously to close ranks and speed up the formation of a national unity government," he said in a statement released by his office.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Counter-Terrorism Bureau warned Tuesday against traveling to Sinai for the time being and during the upcoming holidays in September.
The bureau stressed that "Hizbullah continues to accuse Israel of involvement in the killing of Imad Mughniyeh, which increases threats of terror made by Hizbullah towards Israeli targets abroad."
The bureau warned of kidnapping and injury of Israelis abroad, stressing especially the threat to businessmen who have contact with colleagues from Arab or Muslim countries.
Among the countries listed under "very serious concrete threat" are Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Colombia is considered dangerous "only for Israelis rendering security services to the Colombian government." Israelis currently staying in these countries are urged to leave immediately, the bureau said.