Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Will Israel “recklessly” seize the day? “Have the doors to a war without limits been opened?”

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 23, 2024

“After today [the day of the pager simultaneous explosions], there can be no talk about settlement and solutions”, writes Ibrahim Amine, Editor of Al-Akhbar, known for his close contacts with the Hizbullah leadership:

“In just one minute, the enemy succeeded in delivering its harshest blows to the body of the Islamic Resistance … [Furthermore] through yesterday’s operation, the enemy confirmed that it doesn’t want to abide by the rules of engagement. Have the doors to a war [then] been opened: a war without any limits, ceilings, or borders”?

“After today, it [i.e. the Israeli enemy] will make no distinction between a fighter operating on the front and an individual working in some distant office”, Amine noted.

For the last year, both Israel and Hizbullah have avoided major escalation by observing unwritten rules of engagement or ‘equations’ between the parties, such as not targeting civilians. That is now over.

In his first speech since the devices blew up on Tuesday and Wednesday, Sayed Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, conceded that his group had “endured a severe and cruel blow”. He accused Israel of breaking “all conventions and laws” and said that it would “face just retribution and a bitter reckoning”. But he did not describe how Hezbollah might retaliate; “nor did he discuss the time, nor manner, nor place” of it ocurring.

Nasrallah warned:

“The enemy declares as its official goal to return the settlers to the North. We accept the challenge: You will not be able to return to the North. In fact, we will displace more Israelis from their homes. We hope Israel enters Lebanon, we are waiting for their tanks day and night: We say, ‘welcome!’”.

There is some point to this remark. From the outset, Hizbullah was configured militarily more for all-out war with Israel, than the limited tit-for-tat, calibrated war – which never played best to Hizbullah’s strengths.

Clearly, a new phase of war has begun, and to underline this point, Israel began one of its heaviest strikes on Israel after Nasrallah’s speech on Thursday night. U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin reportedly informed leaders of Congress that evening about his fear of an imminent Israeli offensive into Lebanon.

Nasrallah’s assessment of coming war is fully shared by at least some senior Israeli military commanders, albeit by no means all. Several profess the belief that war with Hizbullah could extend into a regional war – and lead to the collapse of Israel.

However … “You don’t do something like that, hit thousands of people, and think war is not coming”, said retired Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, who leads the Israel Defence and Security Forum, a group of hawkish former military commanders. “Why didn’t we do it for 11 months? Because we were not willing to go to war yet. What’s happening now? Israel is ready for war”.

“There’s a lot of pressure from the society to go to war and win”, said Avivi, the retired general. “Unless Hezbollah tomorrow morning says, ‘OK, we got the message. We’re pulling out of south Lebanon’ – war is imminent”.

A poll in late August by the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, found that 67% of Jewish respondents thought Israel should intensify its response to Hizbullah. That includes 46% who believed that Israel should launch a deep offensive striking Lebanese infrastructure, and 21% who seek an intensified response that only strikes on Hezbollah’s infrastructure.

General Avivi’s remarks likely reflect an underlying reality that had become only too clear: Amos Hochstein, the U.S. Envoy, has failed to achieve any ‘diplomatic’ progress towards a Hizbullah withdrawal from the south of Lebanon. In parallel, U.S. officials, (according to the WSJ ) now concede that a Gaza ceasefire is ‘out of reach’ for Biden; and that, equally, Israel’s military attrition on southern Lebanon that had resulted in the displacement of 80% of its inhabitants had achieved nothing. Israel’s northern residents also remain displaced.

It seems, therefore, that Israel is set on a path to wider conflict. A taster has already been given: On 17 September, the Houthis fired a missile at a target close to Ben Gurion airport. The missile covered 1,300 miles in less than 12 min, which is to say, it flew at hypersonic speed, approaching Mach 9 – untouchable by air defences – and struck its target.

It is probable that we shall see more such hypersonic missiles flying – immune to air defences – should this war escalate, and Iran intervene.

What is paradoxical (as so often in conflict) is that the exploding pager operation seemingly was entirely fortuitous in terms of the timing. It was not planned specifically to move Israel to a new phase in the Lebanese conflict:

“High-level regional intelligence sources told Al-Monitor that the decision to carry out the operation was “forced” on Israel following an intelligence lapse … The Israeli military’s original plan was to explode the devices in the event of a full-blown war with Hezbollah in order to gain a strategic edge – but not to detonate them on Tuesday”, the sources added.

“However suspicions from at least two Hezbollah members caused the Israeli security establishment to agree to a premature execution of the plan. After a Hezbollah member in Lebanon suspected foul play with the pagers several days ago – that person was killed, the sources said … [and the plan was] ultimately executed. The subsequent decision to trigger the radios to explode was said to be driven by the expectation that after the pager detonations the radios would fall under suspicion”.

With the weather due to change within a few weeks, curtailing – or even halting – air operations, Israel was faced with having to choose between two alternative courses: Military action within weeks, or to wait until next Spring to exert more pressure on Hizbullah to shift its stance. The political future in Israel going into next year however, is extremely opaque. (Netayahu’s court appearances are due to resume in December).

The Hizbullah member’s unforeseen suspicions about the pagers ‘cast the die’ – taking us to a new level of war.

Unsurprisingly, the chatter in Israel is that the pager operation has resulted in a major blow to Hizbullah’s communication system that will cripple the movement’s military capability, offering Israel the ‘window’ to press home an invasion to establish a ‘buffer zone’ in southern Lebanon – one that might facilitate the return of Israeli residents to the north. Nasrallah promises the opposite: More Israelis will be displaced from their homes in northern Israel.

The notion that Hizbullah’s communications are crippled is wishful thinking that fails to distinguish between what may be called civil-society Hizbullah, and its military arm.

Hizbullah is a civil movement, as well as a military power. It is the Authority over a significant slice of Beirut and a country – a responsibility that requires the Movement to provide civil order and security. The pagers and radios were used primarily by its civil security forces (effectively a civil police managing security and order in Hizbullah-controlled parts of Lebanon), as well as used by its logistics and support branches. Since these personnel are not combat forces, they were not seen to require truly secure communications.

Even before the 2006 war, Hizbullah ended all cellphone and landline communications in favour of their own dedicated optic cable system and hand-courier messaging for the military cadres. In short, Hizbullah’s communications at the civil level took a major hit, but this will not unduly impact upon its military forces. For years, the Movement has operated on the basis that units could continue with combat, even in the event of a complete rupture of optic communications, or the loss of a HQ.

What comes next? Several scenarios are possible: The key is that Netanyahu is now back in “his comfort zone”. The talk about hostages has subsided, and the plans for the stealth, calibrated expulsion of the Palestinian population are unfolding under the supervision of ministers Ben Gvir, Smotrich and others on the Right. Defence Minister Gallant has even declared military ‘victory’ in Gaza.

And it seems that Gallant too, has bowed to the inevitable: Netanyahu, it would seem, has got his way – bypassing Gallant and senior IDF officers’ objections to escalation versus Hizbullah, without having to sack the popular Gallant as defence minister, and without having to take in the troublesome Gideon Saar into his government!

Defence Minister Gallant, IDF chief Halevi and other IDF officials all issued statements on Wednesday evening which appeared to suggest a full-on war with Hizbullah was brewing, hours after the wave of explosions of communications devices across Lebanon.

From Netanyahu’s perspective, the U.S. – however grudgingly – is committed to supporting Israel in this war, and in a wider war, should Iran enter the fray. The U.S. hints its support is not open-ended, but Netanyahu probably counts on its engagement inexorably ratchetting up as events unfold, pulling the U.S. further in. (The Israel-supporting power-structures would never countenance any abandonment of an Israel in danger, in any case).

Judging by the statements out of Israel, the consensus is that Hizbullah will retaliate, but in a way that is different from the way it has responded until now. Will it make do with a limited response? That is unclear. But anything it does do could lead to an exchange of blows that, in turn, will precipitate a large-scale war.

Senior officials in the IDF and in other parts of the security establishment warn openly against ‘reckless steps being planned by their government in the north’. On the one hand, these steps carry a very tangible danger of flaring up a general state of war, not only on the border with Lebanon, but in the entire region; and on the other hand, they do not promise a solution that will allow the residents of the north to return to their homes, or that the Gaza hostages will ever be released.

September 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nasrallah: Blasts declaration of war, enemy to face tough retribution

Press TV – September 19, 2024

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah says pager and walkie-talkie explosions by Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday which killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 in Lebanon are a declaration of war.

“The enemy has crossed all red lines and all laws in this attack. This is a massive terrorist attack, genocide, a massacre,” Nasrallah said Thursday in his first televised address since the attack.

“The Tuesday and Wednesday massacres are a war crime, a declaration of war…you can call it anything,” he said, adding Israel will face “tough retribution and just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not”.

Israel’s willful intent, Nasrallah said, was to kill 4,000 Lebanese people within minutes but many of the pagers were out of service, turned off or stored away.

“When the enemy planned out this attack, they assumed there were at least 4,000 pagers spread out across all of Lebanon. This means that the enemy had the intention of murdering 4,000 people in a single minute.

“The same was repeated on the second day with the aim being to kill thousands of people carrying radio devices,” Nasrallah said.

Some of the attacks, he said, took place in hospitals, pharmacies, marketplaces, commercial shops and even residential homes, private vehicles and public roads where thousands of civilians, including women and children, are present.

Nasrallah said an extensive investigative committee has been formed to study all scenarios, possibilities, and theories, and an almost-definitive conclusion reached.

“I can tell you with utmost certainty that this attack did not break us and will not break us. On the contrary, it will only increase our resolve and determination to continue on in this battle,” he said.

Nasrallah said the aim of the attack is to dissuade the Lebanese resistance from continuing its operations against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Since October 7 when Hamas carried out the landmark Operation Al-Aqsa Storm inside Israeli occupied territories, Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily cross-border skirmishes with Israeli forces in a show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

“Why did the enemy do this? When the blessed Al-Aqsa Flood began, the Southern Lebanese support front was opened. This front has inflicted huge losses upon the enemy since October 8, as they have repeatedly admitted themselves,” Nasrallah said.

“The Southern Lebanese front has been a very effective front alongside the other support fronts. The enemy has repeatedly sent us messages to close this front. They resorted to threats of war, and attempted to differentiate between Lebanon and Gaza.”

Nasrallah said after the first attack on Tuesday afternoon, “the enemy sent us a message through official and unofficial channels, threatening that if we do not close our front, they have more in store for us and so the attack on Wednesday came”.

“In the name of the martyrs, the wounded, the ones who lost their eyes and palms, and in the name of every person who has taken on the responsibility of supporting Gaza, we tell Netanyahu and Gallant: the Lebanese front will not stop until the war on Gaza ends,” he said, referring to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant.

Through the attack, Nasrallah said, the enemy wanted the Lebanese people to turn against the resistance.

“This goal failed on Tuesday and Wednesday when we all saw the stances of the people and the wounded who hope to recover to return to the battlefield,” he said.

Nasrallah thanked doctors, officials and everyone who helped in the treatment of victims of the attacks, including the people who donated blood.

“One of the silver linings of the crisis of the past few days is the solidarity and unity experienced across the country,” he said.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The US has allowed Israel’s attack on Lebanon, and now war may follow

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | September 18, 2024

On Tuesday, Israel was accused of detonating hundreds of wireless communication devices that were primarily being used in a civilian capacity, injuring upwards of 4,000 people. Although the details are still being ironed out, this attack will now force Hezbollah to make major decisions in retaliation.

Less than a day after the Israeli security cabinet officially adopted a new war goal of returning their displaced residents to areas close to the Lebanese border, an indiscriminate attack was carried out throughout Lebanon. This indicates that the war in Gaza has now expanded in the eyes of the Israeli political and military leadership to include Lebanon. However, there are question marks surrounding how such an escalation will take shape.

The US role

Commenting on the issue to reporters, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “the US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we’re gathering information.” He then even went as far as suggesting that the US government was gathering information just as journalists around the world are.

While this was Washington distancing itself from the incident, it is almost comical for an American official to inform the media that the Biden administration has no special information from its ally on the incident. Taking this at face value, it is an embarrassing admission that the ally to which the US has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid over the past 11 months does not even have channels of dialogue to discuss an attack which could lead to a regional war.

Even if we are to assume that the US had no idea about the attack, which is doubtful, the mere fact that American bipartisan support for Israel throughout the course of its war on Gaza has not buckled under immense international condemnation is telling. Every single organ of the United Nations has been ringing the alarm bells, accusing Israel of committing war crimes, and even the United Kingdom has decided to cancel 30 of some 350 weapons-licensing contracts over violations of international law.

While the US has continually stated that it seeks to de-escalate tensions and that it disapproves of an Israel-Lebanon war, at best it is doing nothing to stop it. If the US government were truly so out of the loop with Israel’s escalatory steps and really wanted to stop a regional war, the wake-up call should have come at the end of July.

When Israel bombed a civilian apartment building in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, killing Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr, then only hours later assassinated the leader of Hamas, Ismail Hanniyeh, in Tehran, this would have been the time when the Americans put pressure on the Israelis to stop. Instead, the US government decided to do the very opposite. At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session called to discuss the issue, they condemned Iran. On top of this, just under two weeks later, the US decided to approve a $20-billion weapons package for Israel.

Israeli terrorism 

There can be no doubt that the act of sabotage carried out on Tuesday was done using terrorist tactics and its intended goals are important to analyze. While all the precise details remain hidden as to how Israel managed to detonate hundreds of pagers, the impacts are crystal clear and we have enough information to render a judgment.

Firstly, the fact that this occurred across Lebanon and its victims were not just confined to those in the rank-and-file of Hezbollah has now left a lingering feeling of anxiety among the general public. The question cannot help but be posed: If the Israelis can blow up pagers, can they also detonate phones, laptops and other devices, and how many other plots of this nature do they have up their sleeves? This also impacts Hezbollah itself, because there has been a clear breach in the group’s security on one level or another, which directly caused a temporary issue with the means of communication used by the group’s military personnel.

According to the information we have so far, it appears that Israeli intelligence operatives managed to rig a batch of pagers with small amounts of highly explosive material. While the scale is unique in history, this tactic is nothing new. In fact, in 1996, Mossad assassinated a leader of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades named Yahya Ayyash, by planting explosive material inside his phone and detonating it remotely. In the 1980s the Israelis even operated a group called the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) to carry out acts of terrorism while posing as a Christian fascist organization, one of its operations attempted to assassinate the US former ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean.  

If this action was carried out as a means of impacting Hezbollah’s communications, prior to Israel launching a larger-scale military operation, then it would have made sense as a tactic that would on some level degrade the capabilities of the group and force them to find alternative means of issuing orders to certain cadres. Yet, this is not what happened, they gave the Lebanese group the time to recover from this blow and so it must be seen within a different context, one of point scoring.

It now puts Lebanese Hezbollah in a tough position. The group must mount some kind of response to this attack, one that is designed to deter the Israelis from carrying out similar attacks in the future. However, the secretary general of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, has made clear that, while his party is prepared for war, it is only interested in continuing to maintain a support front for the Palestinian groups fighting Israel from Gaza. 

Since October 8, Hezbollah has carried out thousands of targeted attacks against Israeli military facilities, primarily targeting surveillance, air defense and espionage equipment, but also striking army personnel too. On top of this, the Lebanese armed group has also been targeting specific populated areas that are located along the border region, with rocket barrages, forcing around 100,000 Israelis to flee.

On the other hand, roughly 110,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes in southern Lebanon due to Israeli bombing attacks that have been much more devastating on the nation’s civilian infrastructure than Hezbollah’s has been on Israel’s. In fact, while Hezbollah attacks have only resulted in a handful of Israeli civilian deaths, nearly 200 civilians have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon. This being said, there can be no denying the success of Hezbollah’s operations in conducting a war of attrition that is burdening Israel psychologically, militarily, and economically.

What comes next

Israel has carried out this operation in an attempt to score points against Hezbollah, primarily in the propaganda war, and the alternative goal is to drag the group into opening up a shooting war. The Israelis do not want to be seen as starting the war against Lebanon, both because they seek the support of the collective West and know that the conflict will result in a stalemate at best.

If Hezbollah does not mount a considerable defensive counter operation, it will signal weakness to the Israelis and likely encourage them to continue carrying out similar offensive operations throughout Lebanon. While, on the other hand, if the Hezbollah response is too severe, it may give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the perfect excuse to launch the war that he has been threatening to wage for months now.

This moment requires Hezbollah to step up and take risks militarily, at a time when they now have a popular mandate inside Lebanon to respond in self defense. It is clear that the strategy of the Lebanese group has been to continue its daily operations in support of the Gaza Strip, and Israel is determined to end this, which is why it is now attempting to transform the nature of the war and expand it outwards. Unfortunately, due to the US providing full and unconditional support to the Israeli government as it expands the war, we are no longer looking at a war which is isolated to Gaza. Unless there is a ceasefire deal signed with Hamas soon, it appears inevitable that we are heading towards a Lebanon-Israel war that will drag in the entire region.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Snowden calls Israeli pager attack ‘Indistinguishable from terrorism’

Al Mayadeen | September 17, 2024

An Israeli cyber attack caused the detonation of hundreds of pagers, resulting in mass casualties across several regions in Lebanon, including Beirut, Bekaa, and the south.

In a series of recent tweets, former US intelligence contractor and whistle-blower Edward Snowden has sharply criticized ‘Israel’ following a series of beeper explosions in Lebanon, describing the actions as “reckless” and comparable to terrorism.

Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad has confirmed that 9 martyrs have been killed so far as a result of the explosion of pagers on Tuesday, noting that 2,750 people were injured, including about 200 in critical condition, in 100 hospitals.

An Israeli cyber attack caused the detonation of hundreds of pagers, resulting in mass casualties across several regions in Lebanon, including Beirut, Bekaa, and the south.

Abiad detailed in a press conference that the majority of injuries, in the initial tally he announced, were in the face, eyes, hand, or abdomen.

Snowden’s tweets highlighted the severity of the situation detailing that “What Israel has just done is, via any method, reckless. They blew up countless numbers of people who were driving (meaning cars out of control), shopping (your children are in the stroller standing behind him in the checkout line), et cetera. Indistinguishable from terrorism.”

He also suggested that the pattern of injuries—consistently severe and widespread—points to the use of planted explosives rather than accidental malfunctions. “As information comes in about the exploding beepers in Lebanon, it seems now more likely than not to be implanted explosives, not a hack. Why? Too many consistent, very serious injuries. If it were overheated batteries exploding, you’d expect many more small fires & misfires.”

Hezbollah vows to respond to ‘Israel’ for pager cyber attack

The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah – held the Israeli occupation fully responsible for the treacherous aggression caused by the cyber attack after obtaining results of its probe, as well as examining available data, regarding the pager detonations earlier today.

In a new statement, Hezbollah confirmed that “Israel” was behind the cyber attack on Lebanon, which left hundreds injured, and caused several fatalities across the country.

The Lebanese Resistance affirmed that the martyrs and injuries inspire the struggle on the path of al-Quds and champion the people of Gaza and the West Bank, as well as extend the continued field support [on the northern front] as a means to back the Palestinian Resistance.

Hezbollah vowed to respond to the Israeli aggression in ways and at times the occupation cannot estimate or anticipate.

“The treacherous and criminal enemy will undoubtedly face its just punishment for this heinous attack, in ways both expected and unforeseen,” the statement read.

Earlier, the Resistance confirmed that a 10-year-old girl and two of its members were killed in the explosions. Lebanon’s Health Minister also announced that eight individuals were killed and 2750 were injured, 200 of whom are in critical condition, across 100 hospitals.

September 17, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

One week after Hezbollah’s retaliation, head of Unit 8200 to resign

Al Mayadeen | September 1, 2024

The chief of the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) Unit 8200 and architect of their military’s Artificial Intelligence (AI), Brigadier General Yossi Sariel, is expected to resign in the upcoming weeks, according to a report by the Israeli news website Walla.

Nearly 11 months after Sariel’s unit failed to warn the Israeli military command of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, the general is finally resigning.

“The unit that has become an international brand is supposed to undergo rehabilitation after the great crisis,” an Israeli security official told Walla.

The Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 8200, known for its expertise in signal intelligence (SIGINT) and code decryption, counterintelligence, cyber warfare, military intelligence, and surveillance, plays a pivotal role in Israeli security and is comparable to the United States National Security Agency (NSA).

Unit 8200 is also the IOF’s largest intelligence collector and has seen a revolutionary upheaval under Sariel, who pushed for the integration of AI into the force’s function. Renowned for his work within intelligence circles, Sariel has made a series of blunders that have cast a grim shadow over his career in the Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman).

Not only had Sariel failed to take the appropriate security measures prior to October 7, but he had also mistakenly revealed his identity to the public. The head of Unit 8200 and other top commanders of strategic units in the IOF are kept a top secret. However, a mistake made by Sariel himself at an earlier time nullified the effects of Israeli protocols.

After keeping his identity a secret for nearly two decades, Sariel doxxed himself after publishing a book under a pen name. The “embarrassing security lapse” saw Sariel, previously known as Brigadier General Y, publish a book on Amazon, leaving a digital trail to his private Google account created in his name, along with his unique ID and links to the account’s maps and calendar profiles, The Guardian reported earlier this year.

Aman’s head of the Research Division, Brigadier General Amit Saar, had also been subject to criticism over the failure to warn and take action against the October 7 operation and resigned in April this year, citing illness.

It is also worth noting that the headquarters of Unit 8200 came under a drone attack by Hezbollah on August 25, in a response launched by the Islamic Resistance against the Israeli regime for the assassination of top commander martyr Sayyed Fouad Shokor in late July.

September 1, 2024 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Why Doesn’t ‘Israel’ Allow Media to Inspect Glilot Intelligence Base after the Hezbollah Strike?: MP

Al-Manar | August 30, 2024

Member of Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, Dr. Hasan Fadlallah, affirmed that Operation Arbaeen Day is historical because it challenged all the threats made by the Israeli officials and the foreign envoys who had visited Lebanon to convey them.

Addressing a ceremony held to commemorate the two Islamic martyrs all the way to Al-Quds Khodr Moussa Sweid and Hamza Mohammad Zalghout in the southern town of Harees, MP Fadlallah wondered how the Zionist enemy claimed that he frustrated Hezbollah attack although it was carried out.

Hezbollah lawmaker indicated that the Islamic Resistance misled the enemy by making it think that it bombed sophisticated weaponry and carrying out the attack in response to the Zionist aggression on Beirut’s Dahiyeh on July 30, 2024.

The enemy’s premier Netanyahu then acknowledged that the Israeli airstrikes had targeted only short-range missiles, according MP Fadlallah, who pointed out that the Israelis always resort to media coverage in order to refute reports.

“Why has not Israel allow media to inspect Glilot Intelligence Base since Hezbollah Strike?”

MP Fadlallah stressed that the Israeli enemy is hiding its losses because it is unable to carry out its threats in response.

Six Hezbollah drones reached their targets in the Israeli Military Intelligence headquarters in Glilot near Tel Aviv, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on Friday, citing reliable sources in occupied Palestine.

Meanwhile, Israeli media outlets started unveiling certain aspects of the Hezbollah attack on Glilot, describing it as unprecedented.

MP Fadlallah maintained that the Israeli enemy cannot impose its terms on Lebanon and will fail to gain in politics what it has lost in the battlefield, reiterating that the main goal of Hezbollah border battle is supporting Gaza till the end of the Israeli war.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

“We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way’”

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 30, 2024

“The successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s attack on Sunday, symbolized Israel’s intelligence and operational edge”: According to the IDF spokesman, the Hezbollah attack was thwarted for the most part – thanks to 100 Israel aircraft carrying out around the clock – pre-emptive strikes that destroyed “thousands of missile launchers”.

“The group [Hizbullah], did manage to fire hundreds of rockets at northern Israel, but the damage they caused was quite limited”, the Israeli spokespersons disdainfully suggested (amidst a complete blackout on publication, under full censorship, in Israel of any reporting on damage caused to strategic Israeli infrastructure or to military sites).

In effect, it was ‘theatre’ mounted by both sides: By limiting their 20 minute strike to within 5 kms of the border – and by Hizbullah staying within the ‘equations’ of war – both sides signalled plainly to each other they were not looking for all-out war.

The ‘winner narrative’ from Israel was to be expected in today’s psy-war atmosphere. Yet it comes at a cost: Amos Harel in Haaretz suggests that “there’s a tendency in Israel [as a result] to view the success in foiling Sunday’s attack as renewed evidence of the consolidation of regional deterrence and [of western] strategic supremacy. But such an assessment” he concedes, “appears to be far from accurate”.

Indeed it is (far from accurate). The Sunday theatre concluded with no change to the strategic situation in the north of Israel: Daily attrition continues from across the frontier of Lebanon, down to the new 40 km border defining the extent of Israel’s loss of territory to the Hizbullah no-go zone.

The strategic point is not that this narrative of a successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s capabilities is highly misleading. Rather, it sets up expectations of available military success from which wrong conclusions will be drawn. We have been here before. It didn’t go well …

Seymour Hersh, doyen of U.S. investigative journalism, this week re-posted a piece that he wrote in August 2006 about U.S. thinking in the context of an Israeli war on Hizbullah – and on its intended role as a pathfinder-project for a subsequent U.S. strike on Iran.

What Hersh wrote then represents a striking déjà vu of today’s situation. It remains to the point because U.S. neocon thinking rarely evolves, but remains constant.

“The big question for our [U.S.] Air Force”, Hersh noted in 2006, “was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully”, the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel”. The official continued:

“Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground missile emplacements. And so the USAF went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them: ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran – and what you have on Lebanon.’”.

“The Israelis told us [that Hesballah] would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said: “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran”.

“I was told by the consultant that the Israelis repeatedly pointed to the war in Kosovo as an example of what Israel would try to achieve. “The NATO forces … methodically bombed and strafed not only military targets but tunnels, bridges, and roads, in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia, for seventy-eight days …“Israel studied the Kosovo war as its role model … The Israelis told Condi Rice: You did it in about seventy days, but we need half of that—thirty-five days’ [to finish off Hizbullah]””.

“The Bush White House”, a Pentagon consultant said, “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hizbullah”; adding, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it … According to a Middle East expert, with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments: Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th [2006] kidnappings: “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it”, Hersh wrote.

“The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because – if there were to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities – it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both”, Hersh was told”.

“The Bush Administration was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced … that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations – some of which are also buried deep underground”. (Emphasis added.)

A former intelligence officer said, “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way”.

“Nonetheless, some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff were deeply concerned that the Administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should – the former senior intelligence official said. “There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran”.

(This is where we are today: When the smoke clears from Sunday’s ‘exemplary pre-emptive attack in Lebanon’, Netanyahu will be using it with Washington to draw reinforcement for his aspiration to engage the U.S. for a strike on Iran.)

“Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, told [Hersh] … Rumsfeld [too, shared this expert’s jaded view]: “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he [Rumsfeld] had tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in – and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy”.

“The 2006 Israeli plan, according to the former senior intelligence official, was “the mirror image of what the United States had been planning for Iran””. (The initial U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, which included the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran) were being resisted by the top leadership of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps – according to current and former officials. They argued that the Air Force plan will not work and will inevitably lead, as in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to the insertion of troops on the ground.

David Siegel, the then Israeli spokesman, said that his country’s leadership believed, as of early August 2006, that the air war had been successful, and had destroyed more than seventy per cent of Hizbullah’s medium-and long-range-missile launching capacity.

Israel however had not destroyed 70% of Hizbullah’s missile inventory in 2006. It was deceived by Hizbullah’s intelligence decoy operation. The Israelis bombed empty sites.

Today, we hear the same exultatory narrative coming from IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Hagari – parading how successful Israel’s strikes on Sunday had been.

Likely some in Israel and U.S. again will be deeply concerned that the Biden team may fall for a far more positive assessment of the Israeli air campaign than they should.

Many commentators across the West are making the same mistake. As Haaretz’ military correspondent noted in respect to this Sunday’s air strikes: “there’s a tendency in Israel to view the success in foiling Sunday’s attack as renewed evidence for the consolidation of regional deterrence – and strategic supremacy”.

Or, in other words, Iran has been deterred from carrying out its ‘commitment’ to retaliate for Ismail Haniyah’s assassination in Tehran by the amassing of fire-power by the U.S. in the waters of the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf and the fear of overwhelming U.S. firepower.

Anyone seeing the video glimpses of Iran’s automated and deep ‘missile cities’ deployed throughout the depth of Iran (and which it has allowed to be exposed to momentary view), should understand that carpet bombing Iranian civilian structure will not prevent the Iranian ability to respond lethally. Iran could unleash Regional Armageddon, nothing less.

So, for clarity’s sake: Who exactly is it that is deterred and backing down? Is it Iran or Washington?

Yet, “If it’s true that the Israeli campaign is based on the American approach in Kosovo, then it missed the point”, General Wesley Clark, the U.S. commander told Hersh. Killing civilians was not the objective: “In my experience, air campaigns have to be backed, ultimately, by the will and capability to finish the job on the ground”.

And that – simply – for the U.S. to contemplate for Iran is impossible.

“We face a dilemma”, an Israeli official told Hersh in 2006. Effectively, to decide whether to go for a local response (which is ineffective), or go for a comprehensive response—to really take on Hezbollah [and Iran] once and for all”.

Plus ça change: The dilemma may not have changed, but Israel has altered radically. A majority in Israel today is messianic in its support for Jabotinsky’s followers to do what they had always wanted and promised to do: To expel the Palestinians from the Land of Israel.

It is understood by many in Washington that the Revisionist Zionists (who represent maybe about 2 million Israelis) intend cynically to impose their will on the ‘Anglo-Saxons’, by plunging the U.S. into a wide regional war, should the White House try to undercut their neo-Nakba project of Palestinian forcible expulsion.

Benjamin Netanyahu has provoked Iran once (with the assassination in the Damascus Consulate of a top IRGC general); twice with killing of Haniyeh in Tehran; and a possible third would be were Israel to launch a so-called ‘pre-emptive’ strike against Iran, believing that the U.S. would be trapped and politically unable to stand aloof as Iran retaliated against Israel.

However, should the U.S. veto a strike on Iran before the U.S. elections (and Iran not retaliate for the death of Haniyeh before then), the Naqba ‘project’ can be moved forward via extending the existing Gaza military offensive to the West Bank, or through a grave provocation on the Haram al-Sharif  (such as a fire at the al-Aqsa Mosque).

The Revisionist Zionists have been clear over recent years that some crisis or the confusion of war would be required to implement their neo-Naqba project fully.

America particularly is trapped by its ‘ironclad’, unqualified military support for Israel – which offers Netanyahu ample room for manoeuvre.

Manoeuvre, that is, towards the conflict that is Netanyahu’s only escape hatch ‘upwards’ as the ‘walls of attrition’ close-in on Israel. Iran and Hizbullah seem to have chosen too, for now, to preserve their escalatory dominance through a return to imposed calibrated attrition on Israel.

The U.S. will not be able to keep such a huge deployment of naval vessels in the region for long; but equally, Netanyahu will not be able to politically prevaricate at home for long, either.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah carries out ‘first phase’ of retaliation, Israel imposes strict censorship

The Cradle | August 25, 2024

Hezbollah launched a major drone and rocket attack at over 10 Israeli targets early on 25 August in what it called the “first phase” of its response to the assassination of top military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburb on 30 July.

An undisclosed “vital military target,” was the main objective of this operation, according to the Lebanese resistance.

“All the attack drones were launched at the times specified for them and from all their [predetermined] positions and crossed the Lebanese-Palestinian borders towards the desired target and from multiple paths, and thus our military operation for today has been completed and accomplished, praise be to Allah Almighty,” a statement issued by the Lebanese resistance movement said.

The movement said it fired over 320 rockets at sites in the Galilee, which served as a diversion to prevent Israel’s Iron Dome system from shooting down the attack drones.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military claimed it carried out pre-emptive strikes that successfully thwarted a massive attack by Hezbollah after identifying overnight preparations for a major attack.

“Approximately 100 IAF fighter jets struck and destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels, aimed for fire toward northern and central Israel.”

The Lebanese resistance movement addressed Israel’s announcements in one of its statements, calling them “empty claims” that “contradict the facts on the ground and will be refuted in a speech” by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

Following the operation, Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an order banning press interviews with Likud ministers until further notice.

Additionally, BBC journalist Nafiseh Kohnavard reported on X that the Israeli government “issued a series of new censorship regulations for media that includes the damage caused by rocket attacks to ‘strategic national infrastructure or to military bases.’”

The Israeli military said some 210 rockets and some 20 drones were launched from Lebanon at northern Israel in Hezbollah’s attack this morning.

Some of the projectiles were intercepted, while others impacted, causing damage and injuries. Many rockets also struck open areas, the military said.

Palestinian journalist Qassem Qassem noted that “The Hebrew media is currently exaggerating the size of the enemy army’s ‘preventive’ strike, and the talk about destroying 1,000 missiles directed at Tel Aviv is ridiculous.”

Al-Mayadeen noted that “Hezbollah hit its targets despite the occupation’s reliance on significant American intelligence and operational support. The resistance’s response to the assassination of martyr Fouad Shukr succeeded despite Israel’s full state of alert for over a month.”

Israel’s allies have been scrambling to prevent Iran and Hezbollah from retaliating to the Israeli attacks on their capitals last month. The assassination of top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on 30 July killed several civilians, including children.

Washington has expressed hope that reaching an agreement to end the war in Gaza could stymie an incoming response and avoid a larger-scale regional war. Yet ceasefire talks continue to yield no results.

Hezbollah has repeatedly vowed that it will not stop operations until the war in Gaza ends and promised a harsh retaliation to Shukr’s assassination in the Lebanese capital. It has also refused any discussion on Lebanon’s border situation until an end to the war is achieved.

“Our borders with Lebanon will change and will not return to what they were before the war,” an Israeli military source told Sky News Arabia on 21 August, echoing months of Israeli threats to launch an expanded war on Lebanon.

August 25, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

France, Spain install radars in south Lebanon to ‘monitor Hezbollah’: Report

The Cradle | August 21, 2024

French and Spanish radars installed by UNIFIL in the south of Lebanon are being used to target the resistance on behalf of Israel, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on 15 August.

“A week ago, an Israeli drone targeted two Hezbollah fighters in Naqoura. Eyewitnesses said the drone was not noticed or heard before the surprise attack, which directed attention to the new French radar that was raised above the UNIFIL base in Mount Naqoura, and whether it was used to monitor the movements of the resistance,” Al-Akhbar wrote.

The French radar, the “marine radar” as the daily refers to it, was installed in the south two weeks ago at the request of UNIFIL Chief of Staff, Frenchman Cédric du Gardin, it says.

“Before the end of his term at the end of last July, the former French Chief of Staff sent a letter ‘reprimanding his officers because of their failure to detect any drone, air defense missile or rocket’ launched by the resistance,” the report adds.

Prior to this, a Spanish radar was installed in the Blat Plain in southern Lebanon’s Marjayoun.

Israel “asked the current UNIFIL commander, the Spaniard Arludo Lazarro, to install the radar immediately after his appointment two years ago. However, local Lebanese pressures postponed the decision until Army Commander Joseph Aoun and the government expressed their approval of it, with Defense Minister Maurice Slim refusing,” sources told the newspaper.

The Spanish radar monitors the occupied Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shuba hills on the Lebanese border.

The two radars “complement the French radar system installed since after the July 2006 aggression on Lebanon” in the vicinity of Bint Jbeil, the daily reported.

According to the report, UNIFIL’s navy has also joined the intelligence campaign to make up for the blind spot created by Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli surveillance sites and equipment.

“A German warship, which has been in command of UNIFIL’s naval forces since 2001, is stationed off the coast of Naqoura. No one knows who is boarding or disembarking off of it or using it for reconnaissance, especially in the area extending from Tyre to Naqoura, which has witnessed several assassinations,” field sources told the newspaper.

UNIFIL has been operating in Lebanon since the first Israeli invasion of 1978. Despite this, their forces failed to end an 18-year occupation and have attempted to expand their areas of influence without proper authorization.

Many in Lebanon have for years accused UNIFIL of acting to suppress resistance in the south on behalf of Israel.

Last year, Washington and London had been trying, on behalf of Israel, to secure Lebanon’s approval for a UN Security Council resolution ensuring freedom of movement for UNIFIL across the country, without accompaniment from the Lebanese army as is the law.

“The US and Israel were unable to implement the freedom of movement clause despite the enormous pressure on Lebanon,” Munir Shehadeh, Lebanon’s former government coordinator for UNIFIL, told Al-Akhbar.

August 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

A strategic shift: Will Palestinian groups return to ‘martyrdom attacks’ inside Israel?

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 20, 2024

Yesterday, the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned Israel that they plan to return to ‘martyrdom attacks’ inside Israel.

“The Brigades affirm that martyrdom operations within the occupied territories will return to the forefront as long as the massacres by the occupation, the displacement of civilians and the assassination policy continue,” a joint statement by Al-Qassam Brigades and Al-Quds Brigades said.

Palestinian groups have refrained from using martyrdom attacks, or suicide bombings, as it is often called by mainstream media, as a central piece of their ongoing resistance against Israel.

The warning followed an explosion that rocked Tel Aviv on the evening of Sunday.

Initially, Israeli media conveyed a degree of confusion regarding what had transpired in the Israeli capital, before an Israeli police commander announced that there was a 99 per cent chance that the operation was “an attempted terror attack”.

Later, Israel said that the attacker may have originated from the Nablus area of the southern West Bank.

The attack and the announcement of responsibility by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad the following day are significant and could become the beginning of a strategic shift by Palestinians in their ongoing war against the Israeli occupation.

But why would Palestinians return to such operations?

Since 7 October, the Israeli war on Gaza has expanded to reach other domains, thus complicating the mission of the Israeli army, which has been overstretched to fight on several fronts.

While the war in Gaza itself remains the main battlefield, other war fronts began escalating with time, mainly the border war between the Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, and the Israeli occupation army.

To prevent the West Bank from turning into a major front for the resistance, the Israeli army began carrying out bloody, but focused, attacks on Palestinian resistance brigades, which operate mostly in the northern West Bank.

Geographically isolated and operating mostly in small groups, Palestinian fighters underwent a bloody, disproportionate war against the Israeli army.

The Israeli occupation army’s confidence was buoyed by the fact that security forces and intelligence belonging to the Palestinian Authority openly cooperated with the Israeli military in their attempt to crush the resistance.

The degree of cooperation reached its zenith on 26 July, when PA security forces besieged the 26-year-old leader of the Tulkarm Brigades, and other fighters, in the Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarm.

If it were not for hundreds of ordinary Palestinians who rushed to the hospital to rescue their youth, the fighters would have been apprehended, if not even worse.

But Israel’s military campaign to crush the resistance in the West Bank was hardly a success. According to Al Jazeera, 100 Palestinian operations were carried out in the last month alone.

Meanwhile, the resistance in Gaza has proved its durability, moving from the stage of defence to that of counter-attacks on more than one occasion. The operation by Hamas’s Al-Qassam fighters targeting Israeli forces inside the fortified Netzarim area in central Gaza, on Sunday, was a case in point.

These developments have been taking place in the larger context of the widening confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, with the former extending its pinpointed operations to reach Nahariya, among other areas, in northern Israel.

Despite all the setbacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to reverse his dwindling numbers among potential voters. According to a poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper Maariv on 9 August, the Likud Party, led by Netanyahu, would be the largest party in the Knesset if elections were held today. This is the first time such results have been seen since 7 October.

A combination of factors led to the resurgence of Netanyahu in opinion polls.

First, the Israeli leader’s main rival, Benny Gantz has failed to galvanize on the anti-Netanyahu and anti-government popular sentiments starting on 7 October.

Second, Netanyahu’s ability to guarantee US support for his aggressive regional policies helped reassure the Israeli public.

Third, the direct involvement of the US-British and other western navies in confronting Yemen’s Ansarallah – Houthis – in the Red Sea has partly downgraded the geopolitical threat of the Yemeni solidarity with the Palestinians.

Fourth, the daring assassination of top Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July, and the assassination of leading Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr the day before, allowed Netanyahu to sell the idea, however temporary, that Israel has regained its so-called ‘deterrence’.

And, finally, despite the interception of occasional missiles beyond the Gaza Envelope or Israel’s northmost regions, Israeli society in the central areas of the country has learned to adapt to the new reality of the war.

While the Israeli army is losing an unprecedented number of soldiers and equipment on multiple fronts, not all Israelis are experiencing that loss in their everyday lives.

The opposite is true for Palestinians and Lebanese.

For the former, the genocide in Gaza has turned into a daily reality, and the Israeli occupation forces’s war on the West Bank has proved to be the most violent since the Second Intifada or Uprising of 2002.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Israel continues to target civilian areas as a matter of course, thus constantly challenging the rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the Israeli army and the Lebanese resistance for years.

The new status quo may have assured Netanyahu that he might be able to carry on with his war in Gaza, reject any reasonable ceasefire proposal and maintain low-intensity warfare with Lebanon.

Netanyahu would also like to see the US-British war on Yemen escalate into an all-out war against Iran.

The Palestinian warning of their intention to return to striking deep inside Israel is meant to disturb Netanyahu’s calculations.

By denying Israelis any sense of security in major cities inside Israel, the Israeli public could, once more, turn against Netanyahu for failing to deliver on any of his lofty promises.

It remains unclear whether Sunday’s truck bombing was the exception or the start of a new norm. Either way, Netanyahu and his security apparatus must be aware of how such a move could prove equally costly to all of Israel’s losing wars, on all fronts.

August 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah reveals massive underground base, reminds Israel retaliation imminent

The Cradle | August 16, 2024

Hezbollah released a video on 16 August showcasing a highly secretive underground facility, which serves as a missile storage and launch site.

The video is titled “Our mountains are our storage sites,” indicating that the underground facility is part of Hezbollah’s large and sophisticated tunnel network built underneath southern Lebanon’s mountainous terrain.

The facility is named Imad-4, after the late Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in 2008.

The video starts by showing motorcycles and trucks equipped with missile launch pads moving through the facility’s long tunnels. Later, one of the trucks is seen positioning to fire missiles out of the facility as a tunnel entrance opens up.

Al Mayadeen said on Friday that the facility’s name, Imad-4, indicates that other sites like it exist.

It sends the message that Hezbollah “is not afraid to go to war, and is prepared for it if [Israel] decides to go too far in escalation and aggression,” the outlet wrote.

It also serves as the “obituary” of Israel’s “battle between wars,” the campaign of airstrikes on Syria which aims to stifle the flow of weapons to Hezbollah.

“The capabilities of the Islamic Resistance, especially missiles, are fully prepared to defend Lebanon … the secrecy of the site allows Hezbollah’s missile capabilities to be immune from any preemptive Israeli strikes,” as well as from Israeli espionage and intelligence warfare, according to Al Mayadeen.

The video is a reminder that “even if the retaliation for the targeting of the southern suburbs and the assassination of martyr Fuad Shukr, and the killing of civilians is delayed for several reasons, it will surely come,” Al Mayadeen went on to say.

In the video, excerpts from speeches by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are heard. “Our next battle with Israel will span across the entirety of occupied Palestine,” Nasrallah is heard saying in the clip.

Hebrew newspaper Maariv referred to the video as Hezbollah’s “psychological pressure” on Israel.

Israeli journalist for the Ynet news site, Lior Ben Ari, called the video “disturbing” and said it should be “examined in depth.”

“The video revealed an underground facility called “Emad 4” that launches missiles underground, but not only. The video reveals huge tunnels, lit, equipped with computers, which allow motorcycles and trucks to pass easily. Did someone say Philadelphi [Corridor]?” he added sarcastically, referring to Hamas’ tunnel network under the Gaza–Egypt border, seemingly indicating that the Hezbollah facility is much more sophisticated.

Hezbollah is known to have a large and advanced secretive network of tunnels under south Lebanon.

In February, French newspaper Liberation reported that the network is remarkably sophisticated, spanning hundreds of kilometers and even reaching into Syria.

Dr Andreas Krieg, an assistant professor at King’s College London, told The Cradle last month: “There are different types of tunnels: surface-level tunnels used for moving operatives and materials, which can be destroyed from the air; and deeper, concrete-reinforced tunnels that serve as command centers and armories. The deeper tunnels, some up to 60 meters underground, are almost impervious to Israeli airstrikes and were built with support from North Korea and Iran.”

These tunnels constituted a major obstacle for Israel in the 2006 war.

The new video comes as Tel Aviv is in high anticipation over Hezbollah’s promised retaliation to the killing of top commander Fuad Shukr and several civilians, including children, in Beirut late last month – which was followed by the assassination of Hamas chief and lead negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

The Islamic Republic has also promised to retaliate to Haniyeh’s assassination.

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

Hezbollah unveils underground Imad 4 missile facility

Al Mayadeen | August 16, 2024

Hezbollah, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, has released a new video showcasing a sophisticated underground facility and an extensive tunnel network, complete with missile launchpads.

The video titled “Our Mountains, Our Strongholds” features the Imad 4 facility, which highlights the Resistance’s missile capabilities.

The footage reveals Hezbollah freedom fighters inside a sophisticated underground complex, with visible signs marking the facility as Imad 4, and displaying the Quranic verse: “Prepare against them whatever you can of [military] power.”

The video also shows missile trucks moving from within the facility toward a blast door, preparing them for launch.

In the video excerpts from a speech by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah were used, during which he asserts that “the resistance is stronger than ever since its inception in the region.”

Al Mayadeen’s sources revealed that Imad 4 features a state-of-the-art technical system and a secure communication network that links it to the outside world, allowing it to receive launch orders within minutes, adding that the network’s communications are said to be highly encrypted for added security.

The sources also disclosed that the facility is equipped with a comprehensive logistics team, as well as dedicated construction, security, and backup launch teams. These teams operate based on pre-determined coordinates for launching operations.

In addition, the facility, according to exclusive sources, is outfitted with a field hospital and enough supplies to sustain its occupants for a period ranging from eight months to a year.

The same sources also noted that the Resistance maintains larger, more critical facilities designed to accommodate larger and heavier rockets, including precision missiles.

It is worth noting that the video comes shortly after US special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut, warning that time is running out to secure a Gaza ceasefire and a deal for the release of Israeli captives, which could also bring an end to the situation on the Lebanese-Palestinian borders.

Concurrently, parties involved in the Doha negotiations are set to continue their meetings on Friday, as the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza nears its 11-month mark.

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

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »