Netanyahu Warns U.S.: Stop Hizbullah’s Militarization Or Israel Will

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday met with top American diplomat Mike Pompeo in Brussels, where he reportedly warned that unless the international community cracks down on Hizbullah, Jerusalem will take matters into its own hands. The premier has for months been sounding the alarm over Hizbullah’s construction—at the behest of its Iranian patron—of underground facilities capable of producing precision-guided missiles that can reach anywhere in Israel. This comes amid reports that Tehran has started transferring weapons directly to its underling through Beirut, as opposed to via Syria where Israel has over the past two years conducted hundreds of aerial attacks targeting Iranian assets. For his part, Pompeo reiterated Washington’s commitment to “confronting the totality of the Iranian regime’s threats through maximum pressure,” adding that the U.S. supports the Jewish state’s “absolute right to self-defense.” The Trump administration in May withdrew from the 2015 nuclear accord and has since slapped two rounds of sanctions on the Islamic Republic targeting its crucial energy, shipping and banking sectors. The American secretary of state this weekend accused Iran of violating a United Nations resolution by testing a medium-range ballistic missile “capable of carrying multiple warheads” that can target parts of Europe.