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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hezbollah: We, ah, Need to Reduce the Numbers of Martyrs We're Producing
2023-11-01
[HotAir] So far the war against Israel hasn’t gone well for Hamas after its psychotic, barbaric murder rampage across southern Israel. One reason Hamas finds itself pinned down and about to be overrun in Gaza is the lack of effective secondary and tertiary fronts. Hamas clearly expected fellow Iranian clients Hezbollah and Syria to join the war by now, especially with Israel now clearly conducting a ground invasion — and doing so effectively.

Syria thus far seems largely uninterested in going to war so far, perhaps because Bashar al-Assad has plenty of threats to his regime already. Hezbollah has tried to at least distract Israel with missile and rocket attacks, but the IDF’s massive mobilization seems to have deterred them from a ground invasion from the north, perhaps with the two US carrier groups off their shore another powerful deterrent. And Israel’s technological advantages have mainly negated the massive missile threat from the north, at least so far.

In fact, Reuters reports that Hezbollah has lost so many soldiers already that they’re beginning to talk about dialing down the martyrdom a bit:

With dozens of Hezbollah fighters killed in three weeks of border clashes with Israel, the Lebanese group is working to stem its losses as it prepares for the possibility of a drawn-out conflict, three sources familiar with its thinking said.

The Iran-backed group has lost 47 fighters to Israeli strikes at Lebanon’s frontier since its Palestinian ally Hamas and Israel went to war on Oct. 7 — about a fifth of the number killed in a full-scale war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. ...

One of the sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking told Reuters that the use of anti-aircraft missiles was one of several steps taken by the Shi’ite Muslim group to curb its losses and counter Israeli drones, which have picked off its fighters in the rocky terrain and olive groves along the border.

Hezbollah had made "arrangements to reduce the number of martyrs," the source said, without offering further details.
Just stay quiet on your side of the border. And IDF will not harm a hair on your curly little heads.
...If Hezbollah’s already worried about "reduc[ing] the number of martyrs," it sounds as though the second front Hamas needs won’t open up any time soon. The threat will still pin down significant IDF resources in the north as well as at the Golan Heights, but isn’t helping Hamas as much as they thought. The IDF clearly believes it has plenty of resources on hand to fight Hamas to the finish in Gaza.

Iran’s proxy army in Yemen has tried to get into the fight, but not with much success. The US Navy shot down missiles several days ago heading to the Red Sea, and today the IDF’s other air-defense system shot down more:
In fact, the only ally Hamas has left is the UN.
...Meanwhile, Israel has put aside any pretense of raids. The ground war has clearly begun in earnest now, and the IDF reports significant progress in isolating northern Gaza and encircling Hamas’ command operations:

Posted by:Grom the Reflective

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