The Israeli military will “crush Hezbollah’s head” if the Iranian-backed terrorist group violates the ceasefire agreement, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday during a visit to an IDF position in Southern Lebanon.

“We defanged the snake, and if Hezbollah does not withdraw beyond the Litani [River] and tries to violate the ceasefire, we will crush its head,” Katz said in a statement.

“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the southern [Lebanese] villages to reestablish the terror infrastructure that poses a threat to the northern [Israeli] communities,” he added.

“We will ensure the restoration of security to allow the residents of the north to return safely to their homes,” he said.

The IDF continues to destroy Hezbollah terrorist assets in Southern Lebanon, including an underground command and control facility on Wednesday night.

Engineering troops from the 91st Division’s 188th Brigade located a tunnel dozens of meters long that led to the command center, which according to the military was used by the Iranian proxy to plan attacks and direct rocket fire at Israeli communities in the Galilee over the past year.

Weapons, surveillance systems and additional military equipment were confiscated during the operation. Nearby, several weapons storage facilities were located, including one embedded inside a mosque, where hundreds of explosives, rifles, grenades and additional military equipment were being stored.

The IDF emphasized that 188th Brigade troops “continue to act to remove threats in Southern Lebanon in accordance with the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and the conditions of the ceasefire.”

A day earlier, an Israeli aircraft carried out a strike on a Hezbollah terrorist in Southern Lebanon after the army detected a man loading weapons into a car.

The aircraft attacked the vehicle “to remove the threat,” the IDF said in a statement, stressing that the terrorist group’s presence in the area “violated the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

Under the terms of the ceasefire deal reached with Beirut on Nov. 26, Israeli forces are to withdraw gradually from the country over a 60-day period.

Hezbollah must retreat north of the Litani River, about 20 miles north of the border, while the Lebanese Armed Forces deploy along the 75-mile frontier, along with monitors from the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

On Monday, the IDF announced that after three months in Lebanon, its 98th Division was redeploying to the Gaza Strip. The division dismantled more than 300 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, the army added.

Israeli ground forces entered Southern Lebanon in early October after a year of incessant Hezbollah rocket, suicide drone and missile attacks.

(JNS)