Israel's Limited Assault on Lebanon

"[The tunnel was used] by Hezbollah to transfer weapons and store them in an underground route."

"In the attack, military buildings, weapons warehouses and other terrorist infrastructure were destroyed."

"[Commander of Hezbollah's communications unit Mohammad Rashid Sakafi] Sakafi was a senior Hezbollah terrorist, who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000. Sakafi invested significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between all of Hezbollah's units."

"[Mahmoud Yusef Anisi is another killed], a senior terrorist involved in Hezbollah's precision-guided missile manufacturing chain in Lebanon."

"Anisi joined Hezbollah over 15 years ago and was one of the leaders of the Hezbollah PGM campaign in Lebanon. He was a significant source of knowledge with many technological abilities in the field of weapons manufacturing."

Israel Defense Forces update on Hezbollah/Lebanon

A missile launcher found in a village in southern Lebanon, in a handout photo published by the IDF on October 4, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

An underground tunnel between Lebanon and Syria dug under the main border crossing between the two countries, was destroyed by Israeli fighter jets earlier. Because it is the main border crossing between the countries, news stories coming out of the Western press play to the left's interpretation of events caused by the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese-based Hezbollah terrorist group, emphasizing the difficulties posed for Lebanese struggling to move to Syria from southern Lebanon where the IDF is focusing on defanging Hezbollah.

Whereas the logistical focus of the Israeli military is to put the smuggling of weapons and rocketry from Iran to Hezbollah via Syria out of commission. An obvious target given the hundreds of rockets that have bombarded northern Israel from southern Lebanon for a year as Hezbollah continued to attack Israel in solidarity with Hamas, its sister-terror-group in thrall to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The inconvenience of Lebanese civilians is not uppermost in mind for a nation whose 60,000 citizens have themselves been displaced by terrorists raining bombs upon their Israeli farms and villages day after day.

The IDF strike along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 km east of Beirut, inevitably resulted in the road by the Masnaa Border Crossing being cut off on Thursday. The crossing became a target as a main transit point for tens of thousands of people leaving the area under Israeli bombardment since the weaponry route transporting military equipment for Hezbollah represented a much more important issue for Israel to pay attention to. Israel is intent on allowing the tens of thousands of its own population from northern Israel to return to their homes. 

"Hezbollah is receiving very severe blows, one after the other. We eliminated [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah and we have more surprises in store, some of which have already been carried out and some of which will be carried out."

"[Hezbollah’s] missile and rocket division suffered a very heavy blow. A significant part was destroyed as a result of a high-quality and precise operation. Command and control headquarters, communications, the entire leadership of [the elite Radwan Force], and in fact the entire second and third tiers of command below Nasrallah were eliminated."

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meets with IDF officers at the 36th Division’s headquarters in northern Israel, October 4, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces

 

Tackling Hezbollah's threateningly violent presence as a menace to Israelis would also in the end, solve the dilemma of the tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians living under the malign presence of Hezbollah which situates itself, just as Hamas does, in the midst of dense civilian enclaves, establishing their command posts and weapons depots among the civilian population, using them as human shields to protect their own malign presence and assets. The IDF Friday released the identity of an extinguished commander of Hezbollah's communications unit, dispatched "during a precise, intelligence-based strike" in Beirut.

The ground operations in Lebanon are meant to be of a limited nature, explained Israeli Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, with an aim to root out Hezbollah operatives to convert the border from a threat to a safe corridor permitting the return of northern Israeli residents to their homes. Once that has been accomplished; neutering Hezbollah's ability to continue bombing Israel, the return of the Lebanese civilians from Syria, displaced by the conflict would also be accomplished.  "First of all, our mission is to make sure they're (Hezbollah) not there. Afterwards we will talk about how we make sure they (Hezbollah) don't come back."

 

Flames rise from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, October 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

 

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iranian backed and -loyal militias claims to have carried out three drone strikes in northern Israel on Friday. The group has regularly claimed drone strikes launched at Israel. Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, warned that should Israel carry out an attack on Iran in response to Iran's second bombardment of Israel with ballistic missiles last week, Tehran would respond more powerfully than the 180 missiles in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Hezbollah."If the Israeli entity takes any step of measure against us, our retaliation will  be stronger than the previous one." 

 

In Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared in public for the first time in quite awhile, to lead Friday prayers, grasping a rifle, nervously glancing from time to time at the skies above, through a speech which praised his country's missile strikes on Israel promising that Iran was fully prepared to conduct more and greater strikes should the need arise. "What our armed forces did was the minimum punishment for the crimes of the usurping Zionist regime." Israel is a "malicious regime" which has "only kept itself standing by the injection of American support."

ET Online