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Why Israel is Unprepared for War With Hezbollah

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 24.06.2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the country’s Channel 14 Television that Tel Aviv is ready to move some forces to the north to confront Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah. Could Tel Aviv wage a war on two fronts?

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah fighters have increasingly exchanged strikes across Lebanon’s southern border since the beginning of Tel Aviv’s Gaza war launched over Hamas’ attack on October 7 2023.

“From an Israeli perspective it would be very hard to imagine a double front war, even though we know that within the Israeli Cabinet of war, there are many ministries who are willing to try to open the second front with Hezbollah,” Dr Lorenzo Trombetta, Beirut-based scholar and analyst specialising on the Middle East, told Sputnik.

Hezbollah has repeatedly warned it would step up military actions unless Israel stops killing Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah has intensified attacks over Israel’s Rafah invasion.

Last week Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah played down Israel’s threats to launch an all-out war against the resistance group, warning that it has a 100,000-strong military force capable of waging military actions against Israel in all three domains – land, air and sea.

Nasrallah added that the movement does not want a “total war” with Israel and called for a complete and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Hezbollah released a nine-minute video last week, filmed from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which penetrated Israeli air defenses and returned to Lebanese airspace without being detected. The footage shows sensitive civilian and military locations in and around Haifa, one of Israel’s largest cities.

According to some estimates, Hezbollah has up to 150,000-200,000 rockets and missiles and has also mastered the use of unmanned vehicles.

But Dr Hasan Selim Ozertem, an Ankara-based security and political analyst, told Sputnik that a repeat of the Israeli invasions in 1982 and 2006 would bring “catastrophe” to southern Lebanon.

“The plot is valid for a possible operation against Lebanon because looking in the past, in 2006, Israel also could carry out another operation against Hezbollah and, as you remember, left behind a kind of catastrophe in the Lebanese terrain,” Ozertem said. “Israel has all the capabilities, especially the air capability and also land capability to carry out an operation.”

While conceding that the Israeli military capabilities are “very strong and very high,” Trombetta expressed doubts about Tel Aviv’s chances of succeeding in a war against Hezbollah.

“Technically speaking, Hezbollah has drones and mainly it showed recently, during May and June, its abilities to launch soil-air missiles that can hit or can counter not only Israeli drones, the Hermes 450 and Hermes 900, but also Israeli jet fighters,” the pundit said. “So first of all, Hezbollah could try to increase its abilities to defend the Lebanese territory with these surface-to-air missiles.”

“Secondly, they also showed in the last weeks the ability to offend, to pose a threat within the Israeli territories with armed drones, suicide drones, and other flight weapons that breached the Iron Dome system on more than one occasion, even recently,” Trombetta continued.

The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published analysis in March describing how a potential Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2024 could be more challenging for Tel Aviv than the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war.

The think-tank drew attention to the fact that Hezbollah has for years built upon its successful 2006 tactics of “decentralizing its command and control and reorganizing to force the IDF into more urbanized terrain where [Hezbollah] fighters can take advantage of concealed, fortified positions.”

Hezbollah has beefed up its military stockpiles with new weapons over the past 18 years. It has also gained extensive military experience during the war against ISIS and other Islamist terrorists in Syria and has had “access to capabilities and competencies used by conventional armies.”

The CSIS also noted that the geography of southern Lebanon offers advantages for Hezbollah guerrillas, including positions on rocky hills where they can hide and fire rockets, unmanned aircraft systems and anti-tank guided missiles at Israeli positions on the border.

The Israeli Reichman University Institute for Counter-Terrorism assumes that Hezbollah could fire up to 3,000 missiles a day and overwhelm Israel’s air defenses.

The researchers warned that intensive attacks would deplete the Israeli stockpiles of surface-to-air missiles within a few days of combat, exposing the nation to further Hezbollah missile and drone attacks. They argued that Tel Aviv is unprepared for an all-out war with the resistance force.

“We should include also the fact that in case Israel will launch a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is very possible, it is very likely that Iran and other Iranian allies in the region will activate their forces against Israel and the US interests,” Trombetta said, adding that Yemen’s Houthi-led government, the Iraqi Islamic Resistance and others could come to Hezbollah’s aid in the event of an all-out Israeli attack on Lebanon.

June 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of war

By Steven Sahiounie | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 23, 2024

The Middle East is sitting on a powder keg, and every minute that passes brings heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

Canada, the U.S., Great Britain and Kuwait have all warned its citizens in Lebanon to evacuate.

The impending war is caused by Israeli refusal of a ceasefire in Gaza. Hezbollah says they will continue to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza as the continuing genocide is perpetrated by Israel, but as soon as a ceasefire begins, Hezbollah’s response will cease.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese resistance group which is heavily armed. Most experts agree that the military might of Hezbollah and Israel are quite comparable on many levels, but Israel has air superiority.

Israel has a sophisticated air defense system, the ‘Iron Dome’. However, this system can be overwhelmed by Hezbollah if they were to launch a massive amount of missiles at Israel, and all agree that Hezbollah has a huge arsenal of missiles.

If the ‘Iron Dome’ was inundated by missiles launched from Lebanon, the effectiveness of the Israeli defenses would stop, and Israel could suffer destruction on a scale it has never experienced before. We have witnessed the destruction of Israeli missiles on Gaza, and homes and buildings across Israel could face a similar disaster.

Hezbollah demonstrated it has an air defense system, but it has been secretive in showing the capabilities of its defense from Israeli jets; however, on at least one occasion Hezbollah utilized their air defenses to repel an Israeli jet flying over Lebanon.

Amos Hochstein, the U.S. special envoy dispatched recently to Israel and Lebanon in hopes of averting a war between Israel and Hezbollah, came back empty-handed. Hochstein had been successful in a negotiation between Israel and Lebanon in 2022 over the maritime borders, but this time he was not negotiating with the Lebanese government alone, but with the most powerful resistance group in the Middle East.

The root cause of all conflicts in the Middle East emanate from the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine, which has stripped away all human rights, and civil rights, from about six million Palestinians, while the six million Jews in Israel live in a quasi-democracy with human rights and civil rights comparable to most western democracies.

U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have repeatedly told Israeli officials the U.S. does not want to see a wider war in the Middle East, where other nations could be involved should Lebanon face destruction.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israel would “turn Beirut into Gaza” in the event of a war.

Experts agree that Biden would continue to support Israel even in the face of a war on Hezbollah. The international community has come out against Israel and its genocide on Gaza, but Biden continues to support war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel.

Biden has sponsored a ceasefire plan, but Israel refused it, and experts suggest that the Biden plan was not designed by Washington to succeed, but was drafted only as an exercise in buying time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli public and military are divided on the war on Gaza. Many are demanding Israel stop the war and get the hostages out after almost 9 months of captivity. Others support the war on Gaza as part of the Zionist plan to eliminate all non-Jews and create one Jewish nation from the ‘river to the sea’.

Netanyahu firmly demands the continuation of the war on Gaza and demands that Hamas be destroyed, but his military leaders have said that is an impossible task, as Hamas is an ideology, that of resistance to occupation, which is guaranteed to all people through the Geneva Convention.

On June 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said plans for an attack in southern Lebanon had been approved and steps had been taken to “accelerate readiness in the field.” The statement came from Major General Ori Gordin, the head of IDF Northern Command, and Major General Oded Basiuk, who heads the IDF’s Operations Division.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened Hezbollah that they faced “destruction” amid “all-out war” at the Israel-Lebanon border.

Katz’s threat came after Hezbollah published a surveillance video that it took by a drone over various Israeli military, infrastructure and civilian installations, including some in the Israeli port city of Haifa.

“In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit,” Katz wrote on X.

On June 21, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon that Israel said killed one of the group’s operatives. Hezbollah also claimed several other attacks on Israeli troops and positions over the course of the day.

In a meeting with visiting Israeli officials in Washington, Blinken underscored “the importance of avoiding further escalation in Lebanon and reaching a diplomatic resolution that allows Israeli and Lebanese families to return to their homes”, according to a statement.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had warned “no place” in Israel would “be spared our rockets” if a wider war began, in a TV address on Wednesday. He also threatened Cyprus if it opened its airports or bases to Israel “to target Lebanon”. Cyprus houses two British bases, including an airbase.

Israel invaded and brutally occupied Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. Its withdrawal was a victory for Hezbollah. In 2006, Israel launched a second war on Hezbollah which saw Israel prevented from invading by the might of Hezbollah, and in the following years the resistance group has gotten much stronger militarily.

Dozens of Israeli towns are now deserted, with around 60,000 Israelis evacuated to temporary accommodation, while about 90,000 have also fled from southern Lebanon.

Israel has launched roughly four times as many attacks as Hezbollah over the course of the conflict, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a Wisconsin-based research group specializing in conflict data analysis. Last week, Israel made its deepest attack yet into Lebanon, striking 75 miles north of the border.

Israeli troops have also deployed white phosphorus in Lebanon, a substance that burns at high temperature and can be used to create smokescreens to obscure troop movements, but can cause respiratory damage and deadly burns. Its use near civilian areas is a violation of international humanitarian law.

“It’s not a question of if it will happen but when it will happen,” Avichai Stern, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, the largest town in Israel’s north, said in an interview, and added, “We have to wipe them out.”

The war between Israel and Lebanon can be avoided if Israel will stop the unrelenting attacks on Gaza, which have resulted in over 36,000 deaths, mostly women and children.

June 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Advantage Hezbollah

By Alon Mizrahi | June 23, 2024

Remember last week’s video from Hezbollah, with the drone over Northern Israel?

Well, there’s a new one, and it is also very interesting. It doesn’t look like footage from a drone, but rather like satellite imagery.

But this is not Google Earth or some nonsense like that. No publicly accessible satellite service will show you Israel’s top security sites. Try it. You’ll get nothing. It’s all blurred out.

So by publishing this Hezbollah accomplished two goals: first, they know many Israeli secrets and their specific locations. Second, they have access to high-quality satellite imagery.

This means Hezbollah can not only potentially hit sensitive sites with high accuracy. What it also means, and is just [as] problematic for Israel, is that Hezbollah may be able to track the movements of Israeli forces deep in Israeli territory in relative real-time. A capability no enemy of Israel ever had while directly involved in an armed conflict against it.

We know that Iran has dozens of satellites in space, some capable of state-of-the-art high resolution. When Israel fought Hezbollah in 2006 Iran had no such capability. Today it is a major international satellite powerhouse, using domestically-developed missiles and launchers.

June 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Canada suggests taking in Israeli settlers amid escalation in North

Al Mayadeen | June 23, 2024

The Canadian government has suggested that Israeli settlers migrate to its territory due to the escalation in northern occupied Palestine between Hezbollah and “Israel” and the security threats faced by the settlers for more than eight months, Israeli media reported.

Canada’s proposal comes amid the difficulty in evacuating the Israeli settlers from areas within the range of Hezbollah’s rockets and following reports from Lebanese officials that US officials had informed them that the number of Israeli settlers displaced from northern occupied Palestine due to the escalation could exceed 200,000.

Analysts familiar with the Israeli situation suggest that this news highlights the severe internal crisis within “Israel” and indicates that allied NATO countries, like Canada, view the situation as dire and frightening to the extent that the solution might involve the migration of some settlers to these countries.

Israeli media have reported that the situation in northern occupied Palestine along the border with Lebanon is “unbearable” for tens of thousands of settlers whom the Israeli authorities have not evacuated.

Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, and the consequent fighting with Hezbollah on October 8, Israeli media have reported a significant number of settlers leaving occupied Palestinian territories and a substantial increase in “reverse Jewish migration.”

In a related context, Israeli media highlighted that half a million people left “Israel” in the first six months of the war, while moving into the Israeli entity has significantly decreased compared to the period before the war.

In February, about 20,000 people left the occupied Palestinian territories, and in March, about 7,000 others left. According to Israeli media, adding the number of arrivals and departures in April to the overall figure, the gap in favor of those leaving reached about 550,000 people.

June 23, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

US vows ‘security support’ for Israel in all-out war with Lebanon

The Cradle | June 22, 2024

Senior US officials confirmed that if Israel wages a full out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Washington is fully prepared to back its ally in Tel Aviv, CNN reported on 22 June.

According to a senior administration official speaking with CNN, the US officials gave the assurances in person to a delegation of Israeli security officials visiting Washington this week.

The Israeli officials, including Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, met with US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and White House Middle East affairs coordinator Brett McGurk.

The face-to-face assurances come amid heightened tensions between Israel and the Lebanese resistance group. In recent weeks, Hezbollah has escalated its attacks on Israel’s military infrastructure near the Lebanese border.

At the same time, Israeli officials have issued multiple threats claiming they will launch a major attack on Lebanon, including attacking civilian areas such as in the capital, Beirut.

Israeli officials are frustrated that they are not able to provide security for some 100,000 displaced Israelis to return to settlements in the north.

When discussing the prospects of a major war, US officials said they would offer Israel the security assistance it needs but would not deploy US troops to the ground.

If Hezbollah were to significantly expand the scale of its attacks on Israel, resulting in the deaths of Israelis, US officials expect Israel to respond with full force, CNN added.

Earlier this week, US officials warned that in the event of an all-out war, Hezbollah would be able to overwhelm the Iron Dome with its powerful arsenal of over 100,000 missiles and rockets.

“Israeli officials have told the US they believe the Iron Dome could be vulnerable, particularly in northern Israel, and have been surprised at the sophistication of Hezbollah’s strikes to date,” the US officials went on to tell CNN.

One Israeli official cited by the outlet confirmed that Hezbollah attacks could be “challenging for the system to defend against.”

It is also unclear whether Israel will have the troops to launch a full-scale war with ground troops. Israel faces a serious enlistment crisis and shortage of soldiers in the Israeli army and has lost many troops to death and injury fighting Hamas in Gaza.

On 21 June, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to schedule an urgent meeting to discuss extending compulsory military service to three years.

“The new security reality requires finding means to continue the war effort,” Gallant was quoted as saying. Gallant has requested that Netanyahu approve this in government within the coming days.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iraqi resistance vows to assist Hezbollah if new Israeli war on Lebanon waged

Press TV – June 22, 2024

Fighters from Iraqi anti-terror resistance groups have expressed their full solidarity with Hezbollah, stressing they will fight alongside their comrades in the Lebanese group in case the Tel Aviv regime decides to wage a new war on Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Akhbar daily newspaper, citing unnamed sources at the Islamic Resistance in Iraq – an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, reported that Kata’ib Hezbollah, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba groups have announced their readiness to participate alongside Hezbollah in confronting any possible Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

The sources added that the Iraqi resistance groups are awaiting Hezbollah’s approval.

Kadhim al-Fartousi, the spokesman for the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada anti-terror resistance group, stated that Hezbollah enjoys great prowess, powerful and effective weapons, and large numbers of fighters, which are sufficient to repel Israeli aggression irrespective of its extent.

“Should the need arise for Iraqi fighters in southern Lebanon, we will be the first to face up to the Zionist enemy’s act of aggression [alongside Hezbollah]. This is a Muslim and Arab issue,” he pointed out.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that “no place” in the Israeli-occupied territories would be spared from the group’s weapons in case of a full-blown war.

Nasrallah emphasized that an incursion into the Galilee region remains an option on the table should Israel invade southern Lebanon.

He also said they would attack any other country in the region that assisted Israel in the war effort, citing Cyprus, which has hosted Israeli forces for training exercises.

Hezbollah has been carrying out almost daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions in retaliation for the regime’s aggression against Lebanon and in solidarity with Palestinians.

The genocidal war in Gaza has killed at least 37,551 Palestinians, predominantly women and children so far.

At least 455 people have also been killed on the Lebanese border, including more than 80 civilians, according to a tally by AFP.

Two Israeli wars waged against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006 were met with strong resistance from Hezbollah, resulting in the retreat of the regime in both conflicts.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

On Israel, White House Lives in ‘Parallel Reality’

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 19.06.2024

On Tuesday, US special envoy Amos Hochstein met with Lebanese officials, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a day after visiting with Israeli officials. The trips were made in an attempt to prevent a full-on war between the two countries after exchanges escalated in the region.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since Israel launched its siege on Gaza following Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7. Hezbollah said it launched its campaign in response to Israel’s actions in Gaza and that it will stop once a ceasefire is implemented in the area.

Hochstein stated that Hamas needs to “just say yes and accept” the ceasefire deal outlined by US President Joe Biden nearly three weeks ago. Those comments are part of a trend among high-ranking US officials that Israel has accepted the ceasefire deal and only Hamas is preventing a pause in fighting.

“[With] the statements from the White House officials, they seem to live in a parallel reality from everyone, including Israeli officials,” Esteban Carrillo, a Beirut-based journalist and the editor of The Cradle, told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

While Hamas has reportedly made some amendments to the deal, it has responded positively while Israel has refused to say if it will accept it and promised to keep fighting until Hamas is defeated. Israeli officials have also refused to confirm if the ceasefire deal presented by Biden was their creation, as US officials claim.

“Just today, a top Israeli negotiator told the Israeli media that there would be absolutely no room to negotiate any of the amendments that Hamas asked for in response to the ceasefire proposal,” Carrillo explained, adding that the negotiator said the war will continue after the Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah is completed. “These are their words. This is not anybody putting words in their mouth.”

While the US continues to provide political cover for the Israelis by insisting that Israel has accepted a deal, its officials have been clear that they expect their actions in Gaza to continue for the foreseeable future. The day after Biden gave his speech outlining the ceasefire deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that their conditions for ending the war “have not changed.” Days earlier, Israeli national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi said Israel expects at least “another seven months of fighting,” extending the killing until 2025.

An estimate by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said that they expect the war to continue until 2026 and that a full-scale war with Lebanon will begin in September.

“[US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken and [US Defense Department spokesperson Matthew] Miller [are] saying that Hamas is the one being intransigent. No, it’s Israel that is being completely intransigent and they have been so for the past several decades,” Carrillo argued.

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought to what is generally described as a tie, with more than 1,200 IDF soldiers wounded and another 120 dead, including the two soldiers who were captured at the Zar’it-Shtula incident, Israel failed to meet its objectives in that conflict and in the meantime Hezbollah has become increasingly sophisticated and powerful.

“This is what the US has also been warning them,” Carrillo said. “It’s time to de-escalate the North because you’re going to get your asses kicked.”

On Tuesday, Hezbollah released drone footage of Haifa and other parts of northern Israel, highlighting critical Israeli military and civilian infrastructure, including weapon depots, military bases and sea and airports.

Netanyahu said earlier this month that his country is “prepared for a very intense operation” against Lebanon.

Haifa, about 17 miles (27km) from the closest Lebanese border, is Israel’s most active port. Its importance has increased since the Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement in Yemen successfully shut down the Port of Eilat through its blockade of Israel in the Red Sea.

More than 60,000 Israelis have been ordered to evacuate from communities near the border with Lebanon, and many of the towns have been virtually abandoned since October.

June 18, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah’s Undetected Drones: All Israeli Installations Within Sight, Reach

Hezbollah releases aerial footage of northern occupied Palestine

Hezbollah Military Media | June 18, 2024

The compelling 9-minute video prominently reveals aerial footage of the city of Haifa, showing the Rafael Military Industries Complex and the Haifa Port area, which includes the Haifa Military Base (the main naval base of the Israeli occupation forces), the Haifa Civil Port, the Haifa Power Station, the Haifa Airport, oil tanks, and petrochemical facilities.

The video also highlights key military assets, including the submarine unit’s command building, the Sa’ar 4.5 logistical support corvette, and the Sa’ar 5 corvette.

Earlier on Tuesday, the group’s military media promoted this episode under the title “Stay tuned… for what the hoopoe has brought back” as the American presidential envoy Amos Hochstein visits Lebanon, holding Israeli threats to the country.

Hebrew Media Panic

Israeli media commented on the footage, with the Yedioth Ahronoth Hebrew newspaper stating that “Hezbollah published an exceptional drone recording that filmed northern ‘Israel’, including Haifa Bay.”

Other Israeli media outlets raised the question: “The Air Force must provide an answer to the following query: How did X manage to reach and fly over the Israeli army’s battleships in Haifa Bay?”

The military correspondent for Israeli Channel 14 reported that “Hezbollah has released extraordinary footage from deep within “Israeli territory,” showcasing Israeli targets, including those at the Haifa port and naval base.”

“The capabilities demonstrated by Hezbollah have left a significant gap among military and security personnel,” he added.

In addition, the Israeli occupation army has requested that the defense industries develop a technological solution to better intercept Hezbollah’s drones, according to the Hebrew Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Monday.

The footage released by Hezbollah has dominated social media discussions, with users describing the video as “a clear message to the entire Zionist entity.” They highlighted that “hundreds of targets within occupied Palestinian lands are now under Hezbollah’s surveillance, and any reckless action by the Zionists against Lebanon will come at a high price.”

June 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

War on Gaza failed, war with Hezbollah ‘catastrophic’: Ex-Israeli Gen

Al Mayadeen | June 16, 2024

The war on Gaza has “lost its purpose” and its continuation for the past months has caused “Israel” losses on multiple fronts, Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik underlined.

Brik has become a prominent critic of both the Israeli government and the military command’s performances, pointing to their failure in several sectors.

During an interview for 103 FM Radio, an affiliate of Israeli news outlet Maariv, Brik emphasized that the war on Gaza continues solely for the benefit of the occupation’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

As for the ongoing operation in the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip, Rafah, the former commander said that “Israeli objectives have not been achieved in the city, as in all of Gaza.”

He noted that the Israeli military is yet to reach or discover many of the Palestinian Resistance’s strategic tunnels. Moreover, Brik described the current proceedings in Rafah as “shameful”, explaining that Israeli occupation forces are not actually fighting Palestinian Resistance fighters, rather “they [Resistance fighters] are booby-trapping the roads and we [Israeli occupation forces] are being killed.”

“We have reduced the army’s capability over 20 years to the point where it cannot defeat Hamas,” he said in reference to the Palestinian Resistance.

War with Hezbollah to be catastrophic

As for the northern front with Lebanon, Brik stressed that any decision by the current Israeli government under the leadership of Netanyahu “will bring catastrophe to Israel.”

He said that the Israeli military cannot currently intercept Hezbollah’s missiles and drones. He then went on to question what would happen in occupied territories if thousands rather than dozens of rockets, drones, and missiles were fired at Israeli positions.

The Israeli occupation is currently suffering the ails of losses on multiple fronts, as its Brigades fail to contain Hezbollah’s responses and attacks in support of Palestine. At the same time, the Israeli occupation continues to admit to increasing losses across the Gaza Strip, where it was revealed that 10 officers and soldiers were killed in the Strip on Saturday.

With no plans for the day after the war being discussed within the coalition government, Israeli military defeat, inept attempts to replace the Resistance in the Gaza Strip, and the uncertainty of success on the Northern Front Israelis have once again slipped into anti-government protests.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Resistance and supporting factions across West Asia seem more united than ever in their fight against the Israeli occupiers.

June 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Gaza ceasefire push is a road to fatal escalation

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | June 14, 2024

US President Joe Biden’s ceasefire push has so far led to further violence in Gaza and threatens to spill over into a war with Lebanon. Washington is either asleep at the wheel or is willing to push the entire region off a cliff in order to avoid ditching its “unconditional support” for Israel.

The speech delivered by Joe Biden on May 31, in which he presented an Israeli ceasefire proposal, urging both Hamas and the Israeli government to accept it, provided a glimpse of hope that finally the US was putting its foot down. The US President gave what seemed to be a reasonable roadmap to secure a lasting cessation of hostilities in Gaza and a prisoner exchange.

The immediate Hamas response was to view the speech “positively,” while still maintaining that it required an Israeli withdrawal of its forces from Gaza and a complete end to the war, in order to agree to any proposal. On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stuck with his previous rhetoric about the need to destroy Hamas, was indicating that he was not going to agree to a ceasefire.

Netanyahu took things even further by asserting that Joe Biden’s description of the Israeli ceasefire proposal was ”not accurate,” also making it clear that there would be no ceasefire until his war goals were achieved. Giving legitimacy to the Israeli PM’s assertions was an article published in The Economist that revealed details of the proposal, in which it became clear that the three-phase ceasefire would be more difficult to conclude, beyond its first phase, than Biden had let on.

Although a series of articles have been released in the Western media, including a Reuters interview with an anonymous Biden administration official, portraying the president’s actions as a bold attempt to pressure Israel to agree to its own proposal, it appears that this move is failing. As the daily death toll rises in besieged Gaza, the Israeli government continues to declare its intention to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian Party that it is supposedly about to conclude a deal with. This as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is being sent on yet another Middle East trip to try and help conclude a ceasefire deal as the effort nears collapse.

Israel, meanwhile, continues to escalate its assault on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, while renewing incursions and aerial assaults throughout the strip. All of this flies in the face of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s recent ruling that ordered Israel to halt its military operation in Rafah. On top of this, the tit-for-tat battles that have been going on since October between Hezbollah and the Israeli military along the Lebanese border, have also escalated to what many consider to be a point of no return; making a new Israel-Lebanon war nearly inevitable.

All of this is very reminiscent of what happened before, when Hamas announced, on May 6, that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal. The proposal was admitted to be almost identical to the one that was repeatedly lauded by Antony Blinken as a ”strong” deal during his last visit to the region.

On that same day, the Israeli military immediately launched its long-threatened offensive in southern Gaza, seizing the Rafah Crossing between the Palestinian territory and Egypt. At that time, the Israeli PM reiterated what he had been consistently saying beforehand about pursuing the destruction of Hamas and his government decided to signal their refusal to agree to the ceasefire.

Again, with the US now bringing forward Israel’s own ceasefire proposal, the predicament does not seem to have changed much. Benjamin Netanyahu is in a difficult position domestically, after failing to achieve any of his war goals in Gaza, he faces the prospect of his governing coalition collapsing if he accepts a ceasefire agreement with nothing to show for eight months of war. The Israeli people also heavily favor re-occupying the strip, with 0% of Israeli Jews polled saying they would like to see Hamas continuing to govern the besieged coastal enclave after the war.

Therefore, Netanyahu knows the political repercussions for him and others in the Israeli ruling class if he accepts a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. However, he also knows that, despite US pressure on his government to bring the war in Gaza to an end, the American government has no teeth behind its forceful statements and will indefinitely continue its “unconditional support” for Israel.

Not only that, when the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, called for the issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, the US government threatened the court. US lawmakers immediately began to draft legislation to sanction the ICC. When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its provisional rulings, as a result of the so-far successful South African genocide case against Israel, the US announced it disagreed with the conclusions.

Even though the US abstained from a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) vote that called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza until the end of Muslim Holy month of Ramadan, the Biden administration illogically called the resolution ”non-binding” and gave the Israelis the greenlight to violate it. American lawmakers have even just drafted legislation to condition aid to the Maldives, after that nation made an independent decision to stop Israeli citizens from entering their country due to war crimes committed in Gaza. Now the UN has added Israel to its infamous blacklist for killing Palestinian children, and the US has implemented another double-standard in continuing to provide weapons to a nation added to this list.

Despite the mountains of reports of war crimes from international human rights groups, the decisions made by the UNSC, UN general assembly, the ICC and ICJ, the United States government works to protect the Israeli government at all costs. This has to be kept in mind when we look at the American approach to implementing “red lines” with their Israeli allies, which the Biden administration still cannot find the words to actually define. Even when it comes to the invasion of Rafah, which Washington openly said would be a “disaster,” it was simultaneously preparing another military aid package worth 14 billion dollars.

Understanding all of this, Benjamin Netanyahu was still invited to Washington to address the US Congress and faced with some pressure to conclude a deal. He can rest assured that the Americans will stand by his side no matter what he chooses to do. So, if you are Netanyahu, what incentive is there to stop the war at this point? The Biden administration is filled to the brim with empty and vacuous strategies, which have led to public calls for ending the war, while privately refusing to ever hold Israel accountable.

The big problem this time around is that the continuation of the war will not only mean an escalation of the horrors in Gaza, but is heading towards a massive conflagration with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah possesses the missile capabilities to respond to Israeli airstrikes with devastating effect that could lead to the deaths of hundreds, even thousands, of Israelis. Under great domestic pressure to launch an assault on Lebanese territory, Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be closer to opening a catastrophic conflict with Lebanon, instead of concluding a ceasefire and prisoner exchange with Gaza. In his eyes, a war with Lebanon could even provide the perfect lethal distraction that would enable him to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, but at the expense of triggering a much larger and deadlier war.

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Has Israel considered a loss to Hezbollah?

By Ali Rizk | The Cradle | June 11, 2024

As the war in Gaza lags on, cross-border exchanges on the Lebanese–Israeli front have intensified. Fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli military has taken a heavy toll on both sides. The Lebanese resistance movement has lost over 300 fighters, with Israeli shelling resulting in the displacement of tens of thousands of Lebanese residents of the country’s southern villages.

Israel has not fared much better, with at least sixty thousand northern settlers forced to flee their homes. While the occupation army has confirmed the death of around a dozen of its soldiers in the exchanges with Hezbollah, the real number is estimated to be much higher.

In March, The Cradle gained intel that over 230 Israeli troops had been killed in combat since 8 October 2023.

The rising threat of a large-scale war

While the northern conflict currently remains within the boundaries of ‘controlled escalation,’ the prospects of a full-blown war between Hezbollah and Israel may be steadily increasing. Far-right members of the Israeli government, who are key to keeping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition intact, have become noticeably more vocal in supporting escalation on the Lebanese front.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for launching an attack on Beirut, describing it as “the capital of terrorism.” Given these stances, it cannot be entirely dismissed that Netanyahu may opt to escalate against Lebanon.

Indeed, recent statements by the Israeli prime minister suggest that some form of wider escalation on the northern front may be in the making.

Speaking during a visit to the headquarters of the Israeli military’s Northern Command, Netanyahu referred to “surprising plans” being devised to deal with Hezbollah, aiming to “restore security to the north and to restore residents safely to their homes” without going into further detail.

Amid these developments, the Israeli military recently completed a drill that simulated a ground incursion into Lebanon.

A large-scale Israeli offensive on Lebanon in the near future would also be consistent with earlier assessments made by US officials, who, in late February, predicted a possible ground incursion into Lebanon by the late spring or early summer.

Hezbollah’s increasing capabilities

Hezbollah’s challenge to Israel appears to be on the rise, reflecting a failure of Tel Aviv’s current strategy of relying on precision surgical strikes. According to the Israeli institute Alma, which monitors developments on the Lebanese–Israeli front, 325 cross-border attacks were carried out by Hezbollah in May, the highest number of monthly attacks on this front since 7 October.

The resistance movement’s operations have also become more sophisticated, revealing capabilities it has introduced for the first time. Hezbollah managed to destroy an advanced surveillance balloon used to detect incoming attacks in an operation conducted via a kamikaze drone.

It has also upgraded its drone capabilities, recently launching a twin-kamikaze drone attack on the northern town of Hurfeish and conducting its first-ever air raid through an armed UAV equipped with S5 rockets. The operation targeted Israeli soldiers in the settlement of Metula and was the first time in which an Arab force had launched an airstrike on Israel.

Most recently, Hezbollah released footage on 6 June showing a guided missile attack on an Iron Dome platform in Israel’s Ramot Naftali barracks in the Galilee.

What to expect in a full-scale war

The increased sophistication of Hezbollah’s operations can also be seen as fueling Tel Aviv’s urgency to take decisive action against the resistance group. This was expressed by former Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who described the Lebanese front as the most significant and pressing operative front in the current conflict, warning that the “moment of truth” was now close.

However, what the Lebanese movement has demonstrated since 7 October also serves as a warning of what awaits the occupation state if an all-out war were to erupt.

The Israeli military is expected to employ methods similar to 2006 in that it would carry out destructive air raids on ‘Hezbollah strongholds’ in southern Lebanon, Beirut, and the Bekaa region.

Speaking to The Cradle, retired Lebanese Brigadier General Elias Farhat explains:

There is no such thing as a limited full-scale war. A full-scale war will have to include all of Hezbollah’s strongholds.

However, any Israeli onslaught on par or exceeding what happened in 2006 is almost certainly going to be met, this time, with a much harsher response from Hezbollah.

The Lebanese movement has amassed a far larger rocket and missile arsenal, with estimates pointing to over 150,000 of these weapons now in its possession. Given this military build-up, Hezbollah is widely recognized today as the world’s heaviest armed non-state actor.

Perhaps even more importantly, its arsenal includes precision missiles such as the Fateh 110, enabling it to aim at strategic Israeli installations that could cause immense damage. Against this backdrop, Israeli experts have warned of a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scenario in the event of a full-scale war with Hezbollah.

It is also possible the Lebanese movement possesses military capabilities that could undermine Israel’s air power advantage. The group has already demonstrated its air defense capability against Israeli drones, having succeeded in shooting down several ‘Hermes’ UAVs in the current round of hostilities.

The bigger danger to Israel, however, would be Hezbollah’s possession of air defenses capable of shooting down not only drones but Israeli warplanes. Given the strengthening of military ties between Russia and Iran, the possibility of Hezbollah accessing Moscow’s enhanced anti-aircraft technology is increased.

The resistance movement has already announced that it launched surface-to-air missiles at Israeli warplanes that had broken the sound barrier and had hence forced the aircraft to retreat.

This marks the first development of its kind in the history of warfare between Hezbollah and Israel and could merely be a warning shot for what could transpire in the event of an all-out war.

That Hezbollah would unveil such weapons in a full-scale conflict is consistent with its strategy of saving its best for such confrontations. In 2006, it surprised the Israeli military by striking a warship in a missile attack.

Israel would also likely face superior offensive ground operations in a full-scale war with Hezbollah. The Lebanese movement gained valuable experience in such operations while fighting extremist groups in Syria.

As Hussein Ibish of the Arab Gulf States Institute recounts to The Cradle:

“The combination of Hezbollah ground fighters and Russian air and signals intelligence dominance was the ‘A-Team’ on behalf of the Assad [government] in the Syrian war.”

Given this experience and its ability to launch airstrikes via UAVs, Hezbollah likely retains the capacity to launch offensive infantry operations – importantly, with air cover.

Manpower and tactical advantages

Hezbollah will also likely enjoy an advantage in terms of reliable, tested, and highly motivated manpower. Due to its close ties with allied resistance factions in Iraq and Yemen, fighters from these countries are likely to come to Hezbollah’s aid in a full-scale conflict with Israel.

The Lebanese movement’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah alluded to this factor in a 2017 speech. Israel, by contrast, appears to be suffering from a shortage of manpower in its military ranks, not to mention tanking troop and commander morale, highlighted on Sunday by yet another high-level military resignation, this time Gaza Division Commander Brigadier-General Avi Rosenfeld.

Israeli defenses are also unlikely to succeed when facing large barrages of Hezbollah missiles and drones. Unlike Iran’s retaliatory attack on 13 April, where the US and allies shot down a large fraction of the incoming drones and missiles, similar-style attacks launched by Hezbollah would be far more difficult to deal with.

The closer geographical distance means much less time to intercept and shoot down such attacks. Hezbollah, which relies heavily on the element of surprise in its military tactics, will also certainly not telegraph its attacks beforehand as Iran did. As a result, Israel would likely remain exposed to immense attacks through surface-to-surface missiles, kamikaze drones, and airstrikes via UAVs.

Moreover, the Lebanese resistance has spent many months tirelessly disabling Israel’s “eyes and ears” in the north, reportedly destroying over 1,650 pieces of intelligence, surveillance, and target acquisition (ISR) equipment since the conflict’s onset.

Israel is increasingly operating blindly in that vital northern theater, allowing Hezbollah to repeatedly and successfully strike at qualitative targets, penetrate more deeply into the occupation state, and employ more advanced weaponry.

The US response

While it is likely that the US will rush to defend its Israeli ally, the bigger question is how far it is willing to go. As indicated above, defensive measures are unlikely to significantly undermine the severity of Hezbollah’s cross-border missile and drone operations.

Judging from its approach following the Iranian attack on Israel, Washington is unlikely to go beyond defensive support. Following Operation True Promise, the White House reportedly informed Tel Aviv that it would have no part in any offensive action against Tehran, effectively leaving its Israeli ally with little choice but to settle for a far less proportionate response to Iran’s significant military operation.

Given how that situation unfolded, it would be a risky gamble for Israel to pin its hopes on its US security guarantor assuming an offensive role in a major war with Hezbollah. Tensions are also rising between the US and rival superpowers, reinforcing this dynamic.

Speaking to The Cradle, Steven Simon, Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa in the US National Security Council during the Obama administration, emphasizes that “a direct combat role beyond air defenses (in a full-scale war between Hezbollah and Israel) is highly unlikely.” This is especially the case, he adds, “given tensions with Russia and China.”

Nawaf al-Musawi, Hezbollah’s Resource and Border Affairs official and one of the movement’s strategic thinkers, offers this prediction:

The Israeli occupation needs weapons from Washington for any war it wishes to wage against Lebanon. After any war with Lebanon, the region will not be the same as it was before. The next war with Israel will be the final war.

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah’s drones pose ‘real challenge’ to Israel air defences

Military drones at the Hezbollah memorial landmark in the hilltop bastion of Mleeta on May 22, 2020 [JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images]
MEMO | June 11, 2024

Suicide drones launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group represent a daily threat for the Israeli air defence system, which has failed to intercept a majority of them since 8 October.

The Israeli army admitted yesterday that the drones used by Hezbollah constitute “a threat that has no magic solutions”, adding that “the response to this threat is far from being precise,” meaning the success rates of intercepting Hezbollah’s drones are far from “high”, according to a report by Israeli Army Radio.

Intercepting Hezbollah drones is more difficult than intercepting rockets and missiles, the army explained.

On Monday the Israeli army failed to intercept four drones launched by Hezbollah, which successfully reached their targets in northern Israel, exploded and caused fires.

Army Radio reported that the difficulty of intercepting Hezbollah drones is affected by several factors, most notably: the drones’ size, its travel time before reaching its target, and the terrain of the targeted sites.

The army has been working to draw lessons from drone attacks carried out in Ukraine and Saudi Arabia in order to develop additional technological means, it added.

June 11, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

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