Israel-Gaza War (and Iranian Distractions)

[Yazata]

Unusually heavy Israeli air strikes tonight (local time) on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon.

And unconfirmed reports of the sound of at least two explosions at an IRGC missile manufacturing factory outside Tehran. May or may not be true, but bears watching.

[Yazata]

Lebanon's Aviation Authority has announced a ban on all personal radios and pagers on flights to or from Rafic Hariri international airport in Beirut.

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The Israeli air force has struck some 250 Hezbollah rocket launch sites and infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon in airstrikes that are ongoing. They estimate that they have destroyed as many as 1,000 rockets.

Israeli F-16 taking off with full afterburner

[Image: GX3kNXpWUAEociS?format=jpg&name=small]

[Zinjanthropos]

Lebanon's Aviation Authority has announced a ban on all personal radios and pagers on flights to or from Rafic Hariri international airport in Beirut.

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The Israeli air force has struck some 250 Hezbollah rocket launch sites and infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon in airstrikes that are ongoing. They estimate that they have destroyed as many as 1,000 rockets.

Israeli F-16 taking off with full afterburner

[Image: GX3kNXpWUAEociS?format=jpg&name=small]

Without firing a shot, launching a missile, dropping a bomb, etc….Israel has inflicted thousands of casualties upon their enemies. All without suffering a single one of their own…. Top shelf tactic for the times we’re in

Looking at that jet. I imagine they could do something similar to that and all weapons.

[stryder]

Putin will love this sentiment (since he's well into conspiracies) however I've got an idea of how to cause a de-escalation in region.

Gaza (And Palestinian territories) should be incorporated into NATO. That means asking citizen Palestinians (not those working for Iran or any "Terrorist groups") to form a democratic government that asks to be apart of NATO. This would mean that Palestinians would have to cease hostilities to Israel, however it would also mean that NATO can make sure that a border is drawn (Ceasing illegal Israeli expansionism) for a Palestinian state to exist and protect the border from further hostilities by either size. (I could be done similar to how Serbia sometimes has NATO peacekeepers to stop unrest from getting out of control)

This would of course mean to countries like Iran and it's proxy that it would have to be more cautious about what level of escalation they intend to go to in the area, which in turn means that even Israel could de-escalate from the current destructive path they are on.

[Yazata]

News today is a precision airstrike on a highrise apartment building in the southern outskirts of Beirut (a heavily Shi'ite area basically occupied by Hezbollah) that resulted in collapse of the building.

The Israelis had reason to believe that a high level meeting of about 30 members of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force was taking place there, including about 20 top commanders. The Israelis believed that they were planning a raid into Israel similar to the Hamas raid last year in which they would shoot their way into several smaller Israeli cities, killing and kidnapping as many Jews as possible.

Hezbollah acknowledges the death of Ibrahim Aqil, the chief of staff of Hezbollah's military forces, and commander of the Radwan Force. He is believed to have been promoted to chief of staff after the death of Fuad Shukr in an earlier July airstrike.

Ibrahim Aqil

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The Lebanese health ministry says that 9 people died in this raid, and 59 were wounded. That's almost certainly false, given the scale of destruction to the building. Which in turn casts doubt on their official numbers for the pager and walkie-talkie attacks as well.

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After the setbacks of the last few days, Hezbollah is not happy. They are firing large numbers of rockets into northern Israel as we speak, resulting in little structure damage but many brush fires in the Galilee hills.

nsNS

[Syne]

Putin will love this sentiment (since he's well into conspiracies) however I've got an idea of how to cause a de-escalation in region.

Gaza (And Palestinian territories) should be incorporated into NATO. That means asking citizen Palestinians (not those working for Iran or any "Terrorist groups") to form a democratic government that asks to be apart of NATO. This would mean that Palestinians would have to cease hostilities to Israel, however it would also mean that NATO can make sure that a border is drawn (Ceasing illegal Israeli expansionism) for a Palestinian state to exist and protect the border from further hostilities by either size. (I could be done similar to how Serbia sometimes has NATO peacekeepers to stop unrest from getting out of control)

This would of course mean to countries like Iran and it's proxy that it would have to be more cautious about what level of escalation they intend to go to in the area, which in turn means that even Israel could de-escalate from the current destructive path they are on.

That not only makes the unfounded presupposition that Palestinians would want NATO membership or democracy, considering many see these as part of the corrupt West, it also plays into their propaganda that Israel has been doing anything illegal. Taking territory from an instigating aggressor as a buffer zone from ongoing terrorism and attacks, is not illegal. It's the consequences of attacking another nation.

For example, I'm sure many people would say that any territory Ukraine could take from Russia would be well-deserved for both what they've suffered and as a buffer from further Russian aggression. But somehow that exact same reasoning is never equally applied to Israel. Likely to due to a culture of accepted antisemitism, where leftists have convinced people that somehow the only democracy in the entire Middle East is evil while the decades of known corruption in Ukraine is somehow pure and virtuous.

Brainwashing at its best.

[Yazata]

Without firing a shot, launching a missile, dropping a bomb, etc….Israel has inflicted thousands of casualties upon their enemies. All without suffering a single one of their own…. Top shelf tactic for the times we’re in

They are going to be talking about this for years in military academies around the world. We can be certain that the Chinese are taking notes.

Looking at that jet. I imagine they could do something similar to that and all weapons.

The key seems to be access to your enemy's supply chain. Few countries manufacture all the gear that their militaries need, and are forced to import much of it. So it's a widespread vulnerability. Here in the US, more and more of our supply chains run through doubtful places like China. Potential adversaries.

It reminds me of communications gear manufactured by Huawei. There was widespread concern that this gear was built with hidden backdoors in its firmware to allow Chinese intelligence access to the signal traffic through the switching gear and routers. The "Five Eyes" countries (US, UK, Australia, NZ and Canada) along with Japan, a number of European Union members and India have all put restrictions on use of Huawei gear in their countries, at least for sensitive applications like military and intelligence networks.

Regarding the jet, I guess that it all comes down to how much trust Israel has in Lockheed and its many subcontractors. These jets have been extensively modified in Israel, so there are Israeli defense firms too.

[Zinjanthropos]

The Israelis had reason to believe that a high level meeting of about 30 members of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force was taking place there, including about 20 top commanders.

By the looks of it, Ham & Hez can’t hold a commander’s meeting in a bunker, in a house, in an apartment, or by using any communications devices anywhere. By now there must be many H&H leaders wary of meeting at all. They can’t even trust their own as well. As Syne noted earlier….Brilliant.

[Yazata]

Video from Tuesday in south Beirut. What sounds like gunfire is actually pagers suddenly exploding!

Apparently Hezbollah uses the apartment buildings in this neighborhood like barracks for their fighers.

https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1836424399525683504

[Zinjanthropos]

Video from Tuesday in south Beirut. What sounds like gunfire is actually pagers suddenly exploding!

Apparently Hezbollah uses the apartment buildings in this neighborhood like barracks for their fighers.

https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1836424399525683504

I think it’s easy to start a war by choosing soft, but to end one you need to select hard targets. I think the latter requires way more grey matter than the former.