פגישת שר הביטחון ומזכ"ל האו"םדנה שרגא/משרד הביטחון

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman met today (Monday) with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.During the meeting, Librman discussed with Guterres security and political issues.

At the meeting's opening, the Defense Minister welcomed Guterres on first visit to Israel as UN Secretary-General.

"Hamas holds two IDF soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, and poses unreasonable demands to the State of Israel. It also holds, contrary to international law, Israeli civilians who crossed the border into Gaza and refuses to give any details about their situation, or at least to allow the Red Cross to visit them, which is cruel to the families of soldiers and civilians, and I expect the international community and the United Nations to voice it and exact pressure on Hamas."

FM Liberman added that "Abbas is exacerbating the situation in the Gaza Strip in order to foment confrontation between the State of Israel and Hamas, so that he will enjoy the best of both worlds ... Those responsible for Gaza residents' poor quality of life are Abbas, who does not hesitate to sacrifice them for internal wars, and Hamas, which collects taxes from Gaza residents and invests most of the money in digging tunnels and manufacturing and smuggling weapons instead of improving the quality of life of Gaza's civilians."

The Defense Minister presented the Secretary-General with additional photographs and documentation of Hezbollah's dominion in southern Lebanon, saying: "Hizbullah systematically violates UN Resolution 1701 and continues to rely on various pretexts along our border with Lebanon. Hezbollah places diversified weaponry, including missiles and rockets, aimed at Israeli civilians in the homes of residents of villages and towns along the border. The Lebanese government and the people of South Lebanon should know that Israel will act with great force during a confrontation in which missiles and rockets are fired at its citizens. We have no desire to harm those who are not involved, but we will not remain indifferent to the situation in which they shoot at our civilians, and we will act quickly, with force and determination. UNIFIL must fulfill the mandate given to it by the UN, and enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701."

Regarding the Syrian border situation, Defense Minister Liberman told the UN Secretary-General: "The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) plays an important role in stabilizing the border with Syria, and therefore we support preserving its status, ensuring its security, and restoring it to full functioning so that it can fulfill its mandate.We are in a very sensitive situation, because Iran is trying to establish a new reality in Syria and change the geostrategic balance in the region in a way that will affect Israel, and we have no intention of allowing it.

"Iran plans to build air and naval bases in Syria, infiltrate thousands of Shiite mercenaries and create a corridor between it and Syria and Lebanon via Iraq, which will enable it to smuggle sophisticated and precise weapons and to establish Shiite hegemony that will threaten all the countries in the region, first and foremost Israel.Iran's efforts to smuggle weapons into Lebanon through Syria and to build precision munitions factories in Lebanon itself, are intolerable for the State of Israel, and we are determined to prevent any threat to the security of Israeli citizens," Liberman added.