Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Binyamin Netanyahu delivered a special statement in the next few minutes together with Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot on the progress of Operation Northern Shield to expose Hezbollah's terrorist tunnels.

Netanyahu stated that the IDF activity on the northern border will continue until all the objectives are achieved.

"This is not a specific action, but an ongoing operation," the prime minister said, noting that Hezbollah had planned to occupy parts of the Galilee through the use of the terror tunnels. "Hezbollah's intention was to infiltrate terrorists into our territory and this is part of a broad campaign they planned to occupy parts of the Galilee. This is a real threat of force and daring that we did not know about. "

In the afternoon, Netanyahu held an assessment of the situation in the Defense Ministry, in which Eizenkot, the head of the NSC, Meir Ben Shabat, and senior IDF and defense establishment officials took part.

Following the assessment of the situation, a discussion was held by the Political-Security Cabinet, in which the ministers were updated on the IDF's activities so far as part of the operation on the northern border.

Earlier, IDF Spokesperson Ronen Manelis said that the army was operating inside Israeli territory to destroy Hezbollah tunnels in Operation Defensive Shield, adding that "they may be destroyed from other places as well." Manelis added that the army was preparing for the operation to take several weeks: "We have to prepare for all the scenarios of neutralizing the tunnels, some of them will not be only in our territory."