Hezbollah’s Golan rocket attack on Israel

The 12 victims of the massacre at Migdal Shams. Most of them children or in their teens. They went to play football in the Druze village, and were killed by a hit from a Hezbollah missile.

May their memory be a blessing.

October-7 would have been much much worse — with attacks by Hezbollah and perhaps even Iran — if hundreds of IDF troops, police officers, and local security personnel (many of whom died that day) had not curtailed the scope of the attack — without any coordination from IDF central. If the terrorists had been able to penetrate Israel’s core, a Hezbollah attack would have probably begun. Israel is at war with Hamas — but implicitly with Hezbollah and Tehran.

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How to react

Israel needs to secure Southern Lebanon’s airspace to ensure the sovereignty over Israel’s north. 

Over the past months of Hezbollah attacks, Israel has chosen not to deviate focus off Hamas or “escalate hostilities”. I think the focus needs to remain on finishing off Hamas’s military ability to ever attack Israel again. Then, a regional coalition — with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf States — to bring substantive reforms and de-radicalise the population towards a separation of territories and a two-state solution.

Although Israel has Washington’s support to “defend itself” ... at the same time, the US moans of “further escalation” of the conflict ... The message from Trump and Harris has been ceasefire. 

For me, I don’t this strike, in-and-of-itself, is sufficient a casus belli.

Benny Gantz said that Israel should hit “Lebanon hard and also tearing Lebanon apart”. Perhaps ... but I don’t think so.

Gantz also criticised the government for what he referred to as the lack of a “full strategic plan of action” saying that Netanyahu “can’t continue playing for time”. But since it took the US a whole decade to locate and kill Bin Laden; it should not be a surprise that Israeli efforts to locate hostages held by Hamas have been limited. Hundreds of miles of tunnels and a civilian population supportive of its genocidal leadership have thwarted Israel’s objective. I think this criticism is wrong.