For eleven days Hamas, aided by Iran and other terror groups tried to paralyze central and southern Israel by firing thousands of rockets from Gaza. Now, strategists are looking for other potential threats and an Israeli expert points to the north as a much bigger threat.
Prof. Boaz Ganor, the executive director of the International Institute for Counter Terrorism, told CBN News his main concern after the Israel/Hamas conflict.
"I have to admit that as an Israeli, this is not the only front that I'm concerned of. I look north and I see Lebanon and I see Hezbollah," he explained.
Ganor estimates Hezbollah could have as many as 200,000 missiles – an amount that represents a far greater threat than Hamas.
"If you ask me what concerns with Hezbollah? Everything that concerns me with the Hamas, but big-time, much more than what we had. So, everything we have seen in the last two weeks, we should multiply that in 10 and that's going to be the challenge that we would face from Hezbollah."
After studying the recent war, Ganor believes Hezbollah would try to overwhelm Israel's number one defense, the Iron Dome. Ganor also points out Hezbollah possesses not just rockets but missiles.
"What's the difference a missile and a rocket? A missile is a guided rocket. You can guide it. You can direct it to the targets, so they have guided missiles with much, much bigger warheads… and they cover all the territory of Israel. They can launch rockets from Lebanon and hit Eilat, which is the most southern part of Israel."
CBN News has reported on Hezbollah's facilities inside Beirut that convert its rockets into guided missiles. It's all part of a multi-billion-dollar Iranian project funded and backed by Iran.
"Iran has built this enormous capability for one purpose and in my view one purpose only, to deter Israel from attacking military, attacking the nuclear facilities that they build in Iran," he said.
Ganor, like most Israelis, takes Iran at its word regarding the desire to eradicate Israel.
"They are saying that loud and clear. Once they can meet their ideological goals with practical capabilities like a nuclear bomb, that's an existential threat to Israel. Should I remind (you) how small Israel is? Israel cannot absorb one nuclear bomb and recover out of it."
Ganor says Hezbollah represents an unprecedented challenge to Israel and that any war against it would dwarf the recent conflict with Hamas.
"I believe that Hezbollah would cause much more damage and much more casualties in Israel in the numbers of hundreds, not thousands, of casualties in Israel. In that case, no doubt in my mind, that the Israeli government and the Israeli military, and the Israeli public would expect the Israeli government to do whatever they can in order to prevent those atrocities against Israel in a much lesser restrictive manner than Israel in Gaza."
While the U.S. seeks to re-enter the Iranian nuclear deal, the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog says Iran is now enriching uranium at levels only reached by countries seeking atomic weapons. As that clock speeds up, it could be just a matter of time until Israel sees this northern border threat come to fruition.
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