JERUSALEM: Israel’s army chief said Wednesday that his troops could destroy any village inside Lebanon, ramping up rhetoric against the Hezbollah militant group based across the border.

The Israeli military has been exchanging fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah — a key ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas — almost every day since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7.

Israel’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi told a gathering of soldiers in Gaza that their actions in the besieged Palestinian territory had convinced him that they could take the fight into Lebanese territory if needed.

“We’ve fought in Gaza, so we know how to do it in Lebanon if we have to,” he said, according to a statement from the Israeli army.

“After what you did (in Gaza), there is not a village in Lebanon that you cannot enter and destroy.”

Since the start of the border escalation, 188 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 141 Hezbollah members and more than 20 civilians, among them three journalists, according to a tally compiled by AFP.

The Israeli army says 14 Israelis have been killed, including nine soldiers.

While Hezbollah says it is targeting Israeli military sites in support of Gaza, the Israeli army says its air and artillery strikes are aimed at disrupting the Shiite group’s infrastructure and the movements of its fighters around the border.