Israel-Gaza War (and Iranian Distractions)

[Syne]

Israel struck 180 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including many rocket launcher sites.

[Yazata]

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.

Today the entire Israeli air force is engaged in blasting the crap out of all known or suspected Hezbollah rocket/missile/drone launch/storage sites in Lebanon. Hezbollah is returning fire the best they can and hundreds of rockets are striking all parts of northern Israel from Haifa to the Golan heights.

Trey Yingst (Fox foreign correspondent) says that past Israeli Defense Force briefings warned to expect some 6,000 Hezbollah rockets to be fired into Israel in the event of full-scale Israel/Hezbollah war. The IDF warned of many Israeli dead and wounded.

But after the pager bombings, the decapitation strikes against commanders, and today's very heavy air strikes, Hezbollah has only been able to get off about 1/10th of what was expected. It's still a lot, there's lots of damage and most Israelis are currently in shelters, but loss of life appears to be far less than expected.

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The Israeli air strikes are continuing. Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, announced that today's strikes have already hit about 1,300 Hezbollah locations. After striking Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, the focus of Israeli strikes has shifted northwards into northeastern Lebanon's Bekaa valley. This is where Hezbollah has their more advanced Iranian guided missiles hidden away. The Israelis have dropped Arabic language leaflets telling Bekaa valley residents that if they live near any place where Hezbollah is present, that they have two hours to move away. (That was more than two hours ago.) A Lebanese cell phone company also says about 80,000 robocalls and texts originating in Israel have gone out warning residents to seek a safer location.

Hezbollah linked media channels are telling the Lebanese to ignore the Israeli warnings, claiming they are intended to weaken the Lebanese people.

It appears that people are heeding the warnings. Highways all over Lebanon are jammed as people try to escape the half of the country where Hezbollah is present and Israeli airstrikes are occurring.

(We need to remember that Lebanon is about 1/3 Christian, many of whom privately cheer for the Israelis to get rid of Hezbollah, and many more are Muslims who don't like the Iranian backed state within their state. That's probably why Mossad is so effective in Lebanon, because many Lebanese are quietly helping them.)

Most of the targets hit by Israel today appear to have been private homes, which will no doubt draw the wrath of activists here in the US shrieking "war crimes!" But many of these strikes were followed by explosives, rockets and ammunition cooking off, demonstrating that munitions were indeed stored in the houses.

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Israeli airstrike on a small town called Aynata in southern Lebanon

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The Hezbollah chain of command has been decimated. (There's unconfirmed word from Lebanese sources that Ali Karaki was killed in an air strike today.)

IDF graphic

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[Yazata]

Israeli northern command underground HQ

IDF photo

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Hezbollah occupied village in south Lebanon

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[Yazata]

Today, more of the same. More Israeli air strikes and more Hezbollah rockets fired into northern Israel.

The Israelis say that all squadrons of their air force have been involved in the anti-Hezbollah campaign, some 250 aircraft. They say they have struck some 1,500 Hezbollah targets including rocket launchers, weapons depots, drones and high-value personnel.

The Hezbollah rockets were almost all short range unguided artillery rockets, generally fired in volleys of multiple rockets that hit like a shotgun blast around intended targets without any precise aiming. One of the targets was the Ramat David air base, Israel's most northern air force base. It's unknown what damage the base has suffered, since the Israelis aren't talking about that.

One exception was an Iranian (or maybe Syrian) made Fateh-110 short range guided missile that was fired at Tel Aviv, but successfully intercepted by Israeli air defenses. The Israeli air force proceeded to strike the location that the missile was fired from.

Note - Hezbollah claims that the missile that they fired was an Iranian-made Qadr missile, a more sophisticated medium-range ballistic missile. If there's any truth to this, then it would be the first indication that Hezbollah possesses this particular missile. (I'm inclined to doubt it, since the first stage of the Qadr is liquid fueled (a more developed version of the old Russian Scud) and would require specialized launch facilities with liquid oxygen etc.)

It's being reported that Hezbollah is desperately calling on Iran to join the war and come to their rescue. But Iran has reportedly refused, telling Hezbollah that the "time is not right". So Iran so far has allowed Hamas to be effectively wiped out as a military force and has allowed Hezbollah to be severely battered, weakened and humiliated by exploding pagers. So much for Iran's proxies and the vaunted "axis of resistance".

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nsNSat

[Yazata]

News today is that the United States is aggressively pushing for an Israeli/Hezbollah cease-fire. The US state department seems convinced that one will be announced in the next 24 hours.

As for me, I'm not convinced that either Israel or Hezbollah are in the mood to back off right now.

Israel might agree to a ceasefire though, given their dependence on US defense technology which they can't afford to lose. But Hezbollah probably won't stop firing rockets into Israel. So if a cease fire is agreed to at all, I expect it to break down within 24 hours.

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But in the mean time, Israel continues to blast Hezbollah with air strikes, and Hezbollah continues to fire large numbers of rockets into Israel. Israeli ground troops still haven't crossed the border into Lebanon, though.

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Photo of Hezbollah rockets striking near the Sea of Galilee in Israel. Most of the Hezbollah rockets are unguided artillery rockets fired in multiple volleys and aren't guided missiles that hit targets precisely. Their main effect has been to start brush fires in the Galilee hills.

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Israeli casualty, a horse killed when a rocket hit a barn in a village in the hills

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[Yazata]

An Iranian- made ballistic missile, likely one of the Qadr's above, was recently fired from Houthi controlled Yemen, aimed at Tel Aviv. The Israelis confirm that it was intercepted in space, outside the earth's atmosphere, by an Israeli/US (IAI/Boeing) Arrow-3 anti-ballistic-missile.

My guess is that the Houthis aren't sophisticated enough to operate a two-stage guided MRBM like the Qadr and that there are probably Iranian IRGC technicians in Yemen.

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News today is that the United States is aggressively pushing for an Israeli/Hezbollah cease-fire. The US state department seems convinced that one will be announced in the next 24 hours.

Israeli PM Netanyahu says, “No Ceasefire will occur until Goals are achieved against Hezbollah.”

[Zinjanthropos]

In my mind the Israelis have at least won the intelligence game. So I penned this just now.

The Mossad Game

Hezzy has his head in a quandary,
Searching for some help in the sand
Hammy’s the same
In the perpetual game
They need someone to give them a hand

With people they rely on so dearly
Dropping off the face of the Earth
Somebody had said
Eyes in the back of the head
Might have helped, for whatever that’s worth

The game requires a degree of intelligence
You either have it or not
But should it be so
You can vanquish the foe
Make them feel uncomfortably hot

Game pieces that move about freely
Think it is the ultimate goal
Lay down a crushing defeat
And again walk the street
With less fear about losing your soul

Can’t win if mind is fixated narrow
Need resolve, calculating and cool
Don’t crack under the weight
Of incredible hate
Play smart, and not like a fool

[Yazata]

The big news today was a very powerful Israeli "decapitation" strike against Hezbollah's command bunker in Dahieh, a heavily Shi'ite southern suburb of Beirut, in hopes of killing the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

The Israelis seem to be unsure at this point whether they succeeded in getting Nasrallah, but they do think that they killed his daughter Zainab Nasrallah.

Air strikes against other buildings in Dahieh continue. They have issued Arabic language warnings to Beirut civilians to get at least 500 meters away from particular buildings where the Israelis apparently believe arms are stored.

Some indication may be coming from Iran. A spokesman for the Iranian government says "the Resistance includes Strong Leaders and Cadres, and every Leader who is Martyred will have a Replacement.” And the Iranian "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei has called an emergency meeting.

The Israeli Defense Force says that a major announcement is coming soon.

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The Lebanese army has established a security perimeter around the US embassy in a northern suburb of Beirut. The northern suburbs are heavily Christian and probably most locals support Israel trying to get rid of Hezbollah. But there's concern that pro-Hezbollah mobs might head up there from south Beirut.

Meanwhile the USS Wasp amphibious group is about 270 miles west of Beirut with marines and helicopters, prepared to extract embassy personnel should that become necessary.

For their part, Britain has a small military force and several helicopters on the island of Cyprus, prepared to do the same for their people.

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The Iranian embassy in Beirut is calling today's strike on Nasrallah a "reprehensible crime" and that it is a "dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game".

Meanwhile the normal Hezbollah communications channels have been silent, perhaps an indication of confusion and disorganization at the top.

"Israeli sources" say that Nasrallah was definitely in the bunker when it was hit and that there's little chance that he could have survived. Several of the remaining top Hezbollah commanders were in there with him, along with several high level Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force officers.

nsNS

[Yazata]

Very intense Israeli air strikes continue to hit the southern suburbs of Beirut. This is new, earlier Israeli air strikes were hitting small towns in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa valley in the northeast. Now the target is high density neighborhoods in the Lebanese capital.

There is video of huge explosions with lots of secondary explosions as munitions stored in these sites cook off. Many fires are visible in the southern parts of the capital.

Large numbers of civilians on foot have filled the streets all night, trying to get away from the neighborhoods being bombed.

Israeli naval craft have been spotted off the shore of Beirut. They are believed to be firing missiles at Hezbollah anti-ship missile batteries, which don't seem to be firing back.

Runway lights are out at Rafic Hariri international airport in Beirut.

And still no announcements from Hezbollah media channels which have gone silent. It's really starting to look like Hezbollah's whole command-and-control is disrupted. They are still firing unguided artillery rockets into Israel, but this may be on the initiative of local commanders who are no longer getting orders from above. Hezbollah still hasn't used the more potent Iranian guided missiles that they were believed to possess up in the Beqaa valley. The Houthis have been firing theirs, but not Hezbollah.

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[Yazata]

Hezbollah has announced the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In addition, Iran has announced the death of general Abbas Nilforoushan, the deputy commander of operations for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps along with the death of the acting commander of IRGC Quds force operations in Syria and Lebanon, all three of whom were in the Hezbollah command bunker when it was hit along with who knows how many others.

The US state department has ordered the evacuation of non-essential personnel from the US embassy in Beirut.

As of now, pretty much the entire command structure of Hezbollah has been wiped out. About 50% of Hezbollah's rockets and missiles have been destroyed. And Hezbollah has been unable to destroy any Israeli target of strategic importance in reply.

Israel's air-only campaign is going so well that military observers are starting to question whether a ground attack into southern Lebanon will even be necessary. We will see in coming days.