Editor
Further, Israel, or more specifically Benjamin Netanyahu would like to separate Hizbullah from the Palestinians’ struggle in Gaza. He wants to achieve this by forcing a ceasefire on Hizbullah through massive bombings.
It cannot and will not succeed. Hizbullah has since October 8, 2023 stated categorically that it will only halt its operations against the zionist entity if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. The resistance front is united on this.
Let us return to Israel’s terrorist attacks on September 17 and 18, hundreds of pagers used by Hizbullah commanders as well as civilians—doctors, ambulance drivers, pharmacists, academics etc—exploded causing 37 deaths and hundreds of injuries. Fortunately, not all 4,000 pagers were operational otherwise the casualties would have been horrendous.
Western regimes and intelligence operatives are complicit in the latest Israeli terrorist acts, as they have been since day one of the zionists’ genocidal war on Gaza. The former CIA director and US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a statement saying that Israel’s attack on pagers in Lebanon was “a form of terrorism.” While one should not read too much into Panetta’s statement, it appears that in the upper echelons of the US, a perceptible shift in thinking is occurring.
The Israeli air strikes of September 23 and 24 have caused massive civilian casualties. “At least 569 people, including 50 children, have been killed and 1,835 wounded”, according to Al Jazeera quoting Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The real figure is certainly much higher. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians have been forced from their homes in the south and headed north to Beirut.
The question that must be asked is why did Israel escalate the war with Hizbullah when zionist forces have failed to achieve their objectives even in tiny Gaza? The war on Lebanon is meant to divert attention from Gaza. Ibrahim al-Amin, the well-informed editor-in-chief of the Lebanese daily, Al-akhbar explained this on September 24 (Translation by resistancenews.com).
“For several weeks now, Netanyahu and numerous political and military leaders have recognized that the war in Gaza has reached a stalemate. There was no possibility of recovering prisoners or effectively eliminating Hamas.” Thus, Netanyahu escalated the northern front by adding a “new objective” to the war: to repatriate the settlers to their homes in the north.
“Even those who opposed his policy regarding Gaza accused him of weakness in the face of Hizbullah, which facilitated his double maneuver: silencing the debate on Gaza and justifying the continuation of the war with the objective of repatriating settlers,” wrote Al-Amin.
The other reason, according to zionist thinking, was to sharpen divisions in Lebanese society and use them against Hizbullah. Exactly the opposite has happened. Even the most staunchly anti-Hizbullah groups—the Phalange and Kataeb, for instance—rallied to its side. While this may be symbolic, Hizbullah does not have to contend with their opposition, at least for now.
While the zionist war criminals have killed hundreds of civilians including children in Lebanon—this is the only thing they are capable of doing—Hizbullah has continued to target Israeli military sites. The Megiddo military airport west of Afula, the Ramat David air base near Haifa, the Amos logistic base and the Zikhron explosives factory were hit evading the much-vaunted Iron Dome. The logistical warehouses of the 146th Division of the Israeli military at the Naftali base were also struck by a barrage of rockets.
The extent of damage to Israeli military sites cannot be quantified at this time because the zionist regime has imposed strict censorship on media coverage of its losses. On September 23, it also imposed a state of emergency. What is the emergency if Israel’s military is winning?
Despite Israeli claims that all Hizbullah projectiles were intercepted, the illegal settlement of Kiryat Shmona as well as the port city of Haifa were struck sending the squatters scurrying to underground bunkers. Schools have been shut down. Hospitals have reportedly been instructed to send their injured to underground hideouts.
According to the Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli cabinet ministers voted to declare a “special home front situation” throughout Israel. This gives the army vast powers to ban gatherings, order schools and universities to shut down and issue other instructions. Israel is now effectively under military rule. So much for “the only democracy” in the Middle East!
As soon as Israel launched its barbarous attack on Lebanese civilians, its army claimed that more than 50 percent of Hizbullah’s missiles were destroyed. As a consequence, the Islamic resistance had been taken 20 years back.
These claims were rubbished by former Israeli commanders. One of them, former commander of the Israeli army’s air defense, Brigadier General Zvika Haimovich, said that Hizbullah launched over 180 missiles in one day. The group can fire that number within just one hour. He dismissed the army’s claim that it had destroyed 50 percent of Hizbullah’s stockpile of missiles.
His statement came after Reserve Major General Yaakov Amidror, the former Security Advisor and head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate’s Research Department, said that Israel is not even close to destroying Hizbullah’s capabilities.
Amidror told Israeli Channel 14 that Hizbullah has about 100,000 rockets (150,000—editor), and “if we hit 30,000, they still have 70,000, which is seven times what Hamas had.” Therefore, he asserted that Tel Aviv is “very far from defeating or stripping Hizbullah of its capabilities.”
While parroting regime propaganda about military “achievements”, the Israeli media admitted that Hizbullah “is capable of striking Tel Aviv and paralyzing Israeli airspace and power stations, as well as Air Force bases, despite military operations.”
This is only the beginning of the intensified campaign. The Israeli army is badly depleted and its soldiers are exhausted. Netanyahu wants to save his own hide even it means destroying Israel as well as its “most moral army” in the world.
On all counts, Israel has already lost before it even began, just like it lost against Hamas in Gaza. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the zionist entity. One indication of this is the number of Israelis fleeing the “zionist utopia”.
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