Equipo Nizkor - UNSC S/2016/153 - Letter from Israel on the threats made by the head of Hezbollah.

United Nations
Security Council

S/2016/153

Distr.: General
18 February 2016
Original: English

Identical letters dated 17 February 2016 from the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

I am writing to draw your attention to the outrageous threats made by the head of Hezbollah, an internationally designated terrorist organization.

Yesterday, in an open public statement, Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, issued an imminent threat to the citizens of northern Israel. He threatened a catastrophic attack on Haifa's ammonia storage tanks, which would "lead to the death of tens of thousands of residents and 800,000 Israelis would be affected".

Nasrallah declared that "this would be exactly as a nuclear bomb and we can say that Lebanon today has a nuclear bomb ... we are able with only a few rockets to target gas containers in Haifa and kill tens of thousands" of innocent Israeli civilians.

This threat of the mass murder of innocents comes from the head of an Iranian proxy terror organization which is currently assisting the Assad regime to slaughter hundreds of thousands in Syria, including by conducting a deliberate policy of starving people to death.

The gravity of this threat is magnified by Hezbollah's ongoing militarization of the towns and villages of southern Lebanon, in clear violation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006). Every day, new evidence emerges that Hezbollah is using southern Lebanon as a military encampment and is embedding its military infrastructure in civilian areas. Hezbollah has stationed thousands of missiles and rockets in the heart of southern Lebanon's civilian population.

The goal of this build-up is clear. This is a terror organization which has repeatedly targeted Israeli civilians from within the Lebanese civilian population — a double war crime. Hezbollah is actively working to expand its capabilities to carry out such indiscriminate attacks, while openly declaring its intention to continue to do so. Nasrallah himself boasted that "the resistance [Hezbollah] has missiles that can reach every place" in Israel.

Hezbollah's military build-up and murderous threats are unacceptable. When a terrorist organization publicly threatens the civilians of another country, silence is not an option.

I call on you to publicly condemn this dangerous and aggressive statement and to demand that the Government of Lebanon live up to its commitments and fully implement Security Council resolution 1701 (2006).

I should be grateful if you would have the present letter distributed as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Danny Danon
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

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18Feb16

Letter from Israel on the threats made by the head of Hezbollah