Very good, very important and very impressive news.
Israel has more-or-less ended the entire leadership of a terrorist group, in less than a month.
Israel has maimed and killed many (if not most) Hezbollah fighters, destroyed their communications, destroyed infrastructure, and now their leadership.
Nasrallah has already been replaced. And that new guy, who was to replace him (“Nabil Kaouk”), has already been killed too.
Iran has to be licking its wounds. Its proxy armies have been utterly decimated. And now, they’re trying to save face from the ridicule of the Arab world. The Ayatollah seems to be in genuine fear of his personal safety.
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The underestimation of Israel
Israel’s enemies now understand how much more powerful Israel is, than they ever thought.
It’s the same mistake every Arab leader since 1948 has made: just don’t understand Israel at all.
And, once again, reeling in shock at their reversal of fortune.
Last October, Nasrallah must have believed that he could attack Israel in solidarity with Hamas on the basis that Israel would be too preoccupied with Hamas. He assumed Israel would be unwilling to “escalate” (i.e. seriously retaliate). He assumed that Iran would actively protect Hezbollah. And finally, he assumed that Israel would be too risk-averse and fearful to “risk” war with Hezbollah (based on the last engagement of the IDF in Lebanon in which they suffered higher than expected losses).
And, yet, Israel has learned the lesson from their former conflict in the Lebanon and adjusted their strategy and methods to avoid repeating such mistakes. Her enemies don’t.
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Israel probably has to continue striking Hezbollah
There are probably 2 reasons for Israel’s continuation of the strikes in Lebanon:
- There are still over 100,000 Hezbollah rockets, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles etc… and you can’t leave Hezbollah with these rockets aimed at Israel. Most of them are located in Southern Lebanon, but some are also hidden in North Lebanon, close to the Syrian border. With Hezbollah having been significantly weakened, there’s a power vacuum taking place in Lebanon, which raises concerns for domestic unrest.
- Rather, it is the propaganda and ideology that create terrorists (alongside international proxies). Bombs don’t create terrorists. The Allies bombed the Germany, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam and yet there aren’t major terrorist groups there.
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Great article in the DT: Telegraph View - Israel is winning its war on terror
First Hamas, now Hezbollah: in a matter of months, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has decapitated the two most powerful terrorist organisations in the world.
Rather than rejoice, however, the West has offered at best lukewarm support, at worst ostracism and obstruction.
Yet Israel’s ingenious military response shows that it has lost none of its capacity to astonish the world, just as it did in 1948, in 1967 and ever since.
Once again, and with remarkable panache, Israel has transformed defeat into victory. On Friday, it scored perhaps its most stunning victory so far. Hezbollah has confirmed that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, perished in the rubble of his headquarters in Beirut. After three decades, he has finally paid the price for his crimes and for bringing ruin on his own country of Lebanon.
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Just as IDF’s precision strikes have taken out Hezbollah’s command and control centres, so Mossad transformed their pagers into miniature bombs. This brilliantly planned and executed operation neatly turned the tables on the terrorists, some 1,500 of whom are reportedly out of action.
Even if Hezbollah’s boasted strength of 100,000 men and 150,000 missiles is correct, its offensive capabilities have suffered a severe, perhaps irreparable blow. After dismantling Hamas’s forces in Gaza, Israel has now neutralised the two most immediate threats to its civilian population. Iran, which is responsible for unleashing the present conflict, has suffered a strategic defeat. And Israel-haters everywhere have been reminded that those who attack the Jewish people will not escape unscathed.
Yet we should not forget how grim, even desperate, Israel’s predicament appeared after the genocidal onslaught of October 7 last year. That day 6,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, armed to the teeth. They killed almost 1,200 people in cold blood; most were civilians, including 36 children. Many were raped or tortured; 3,400 were wounded. Hamas took some 251 hostages: eight have been rescued by the IDF and 109 were released in exchange deals. The rest are still in captivity, or dead.
October 7 was Israel’s darkest day. Its military had become complacent and its failure to protect civilians came as a shock. They had come close to defeat in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 by falling for the myth of their own invincibility. Fifty years later, the IDF’s hubris was again followed by nemesis. Israel’s enemies could not wait to exploit its apparent vulnerability. Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border almost immediately, forcing the evacuation of more than 60,000 civilians from northern Israeli cities such as Kiryat Shmona.
In Yemen, the Houthis began a campaign of piracy against Red Sea shipping which continues to this day. Last April, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched a barrage of drones and missiles in its first direct assault on Israel.
None of this, nor even the horrors of October 7, intimidated the Israelis. They fought back to reduce the vast underground fortress that Gaza had become under Hamas rule, constructed largely with money diverted from aid.
Despite the difficulty of fighting a ruthless foe that shielded itself in hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, the IDF kept the ratio of civilian to military casualties in Gaza lower than in any comparable conflict.
Despite that, the global consensus turned against Israel. Even its allies in the United States and Europe have blown hot and cold, constantly blaming Israel for the humanitarian crisis that the terror regime in Gaza had brought upon its own people. Lately, the Labour government has gone further, accusing Israel of blocking food supplies to Gaza.
The Prime Minister has told the House of Commons that he is bound by law to prohibit certain arms exports to Israel. Both these claims are demonstrably false.
Israel has ignored this hostile consensus and carried on exercising its right to self-defence. It has routed two terror organisations which between them had more men under arms and bigger arsenals than many sovereign states.
Whether judged by military prowess or humanitarian scruples, the IDF is the most formidable fighting force on earth. Rather than preaching to the Israelis, we in the West should admire their daring, emulate their creativity and learn from their example. Like any nation state, Israel is not perfect, but it has survived and flourished in a dangerous region by its own efforts.
The ordeal of the past year has tested Israelis to the limit, but they have emerged all the stronger for it.
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