Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has fired off one of his starkest warnings yet to Hezbollah, telling the group that joining any Iranian attack on Israel would be a costly mistake. Speaking on Wednesday during a visit to the Israeli military's security zone in southern Lebanon, Katz said Hezbollah would suffer a severe blow and lose additional territory in the Nabatieh and Litani River areas, which would then become part of Israel's permanent security zone. He declared that the IDF is prepared to carry out the ground maneuver and stressed that, as he and the prime minister have made clear, Israel will not withdraw from its existing security zones. He said the visit was meant to strengthen soldiers and reservists operating in the zones in Lebanon and Syria to protect residents of the Galilee and Golan. The message could hardly have been blunter, and it is already making waves across the region.

The most explosive part of the warning was what Katz said would happen to civilians. According to his remarks, the entire Shiite population up to the Awali and Zahrani rivers would be evacuated northward to make way for powerful strikes on terrorist infrastructure and to push back the drone threat. He added that Beirut's Dahiyeh district, a known Hezbollah stronghold, would also be evacuated and its infrastructure struck, concluding that more than one million Shiites would be displaced in Lebanon. Katz closed with a personal jab at Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem, saying the late Hassan Nasrallah destroyed Lebanon's Shiite community and that Qassem could destroy it completely before he too is eliminated. The statement is a threat rather than an action, and it is unclear whether Hezbollah will join an Iranian attack at all, but with Iran's war already rattling the region, few will dismiss it as empty talk.