"Ten buildings for every drone": Israeli minister floats Beirut retaliation doctrine

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has outlined a highly escalatory deterrence approach toward Hezbollah, suggesting that Israel should respond to drone attacks on its territory with large-scale destruction in Lebanon, according to Clash Report.

Speaking on the issue of security threats from the Iran-backed group, Smotrich said that the “most effective way to stop Hezbollah” would be to announce a policy in which “for every drone, 10 buildings in Beirut will be destroyed.” 

Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich on Lebanon:

The most effective way to stop Hezbollah is simply to announce that for every drone, 10 buildings in Beirut will be destroyed.

If there were seven drones, then 70 buildings. If there were 15, then 150.

And if the buildings in… pic.twitter.com/aov8WYcni9

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 26, 2026

He added a proportional framework for escalation, stating: “If there were seven drones, then 70 buildings. If there were 15, then 150.”

Expanding the scope of potential targets, Smotrich further said that if “the buildings in Beirut run out,” military action would extend beyond the capital, adding: “then we move on to Tyre, Sidon, and the Beqaa Valley.”

Furthermore, Smotrich has said that the Middle East is being reshaped, arguing that Iran is significantly weaker, though not yet collapsed, and adding that this outcome would ultimately be achieved “with God’s help”.

He also referred to the situation in Gaza and Lebanon as evidence of what he described as a “changing of the rules of the game”.

Smotrich stated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had succeeded in securing close alignment between the United States and Israel against what he called the Iranian threat, praising what he described as the strongest pro-Israel US administration in history.

On Gaza, he reiterated that military operations would continue until Hamas is fully defeated, stressing that no reconstruction of the territory would take place without its demilitarisation and the completion of what he described as the mission to eliminate Hamas.

He added that Israel was operating in around 60% of the Gaza Strip and that the campaign was ongoing, involving what he characterised as sustained and intensified strikes against its adversaries.

By Aghakazim Guliyev