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2024-09-29 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Hezbollah chief's death brings ground operation in Lebanon closer
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] On the afternoon of September 27, Israel launched a massive strike on the Dahya district, a Shiite suburb of Beirut where Tel Aviv believes Hezbollah's underground headquarters are located.
Two-ton bombs that could pierce concrete were dropped on a block of high-rise buildings, under which the movement's leadership was allegedly located. The attack killed about 700 people.
The strike on the Beirut suburb was the first time since the Second Lebanon Campaign (2006) that the Israeli leadership identified residential buildings as a target rather than classifying them as “collateral damage.”
Israel explains this by following the “Dahya doctrine,” which implies a disproportionately destructive strike on the enemy’s infrastructure in response to every hostile attack.
This time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) managed to maximize the response to the repeated shelling of Israeli territory by striking the entire top brass of Hezbollah - at a time when a meeting was taking place at the movement's headquarters on further operations against the Israelis.
In addition to Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, the raid also killed Ali Karaki, commander of the Southern Front, whose units were supposed to bear the first brunt of the Israeli ground operation in Lebanon.
The high probability of Nasrallah and his associates being killed is indicated, in particular, by the fact that the Secretary General's daughter Zeinab, who often accompanied her father during military operations, was identified among the bodies recovered from the rubble in the Dahya region.
Tehran reacted painfully to the incident, immediately convening a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council under the leadership of the country's spiritual leader Ali Khamenei. Although the Iranian press continues to actively disseminate information that the Hezbollah Secretary General was not injured as a result of the Israeli attack and "is in a safe place."
However, exactly the same wording was used in the first hours after the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a plane crash.
Apparently, Tehran was also caught off guard by the Israeli operation. At least, there have been no clear statements about retaliatory actions from the Iranian authorities. "In addition" to the unavenged head of the Hamas politburo Ismail Haniyeh, there will probably be talk of "retaliation" for Nasrallah.
The rest of the “Axis of Resistance” also refrained from making any assessments, apparently not wanting to conflict with official Tehran.
ALMOST WITHOUT GUIDANCE
In the weeks since Israel's combined attacks on Hezbollah, which began with a high-profile "pager attack," Israel has succeeded in significantly changing the balance of power in the conflict.
The movement was clearly not ready for a consistent and methodical hunt for its key commanders, considering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements about the “inevitability of retribution” to be another game for the public.
The IDF's information materials report that the Israeli armed forces have succeeded in effectively decapitating Hezbollah and disrupting the system of command and control of key units that had been built up over the years.
Thus, after the strike on Nasrallah’s underground bunker, only one commander allegedly remained in the movement’s chain of command: the commander of the Badr special forces, Abu Ali Rida, who is responsible for the “second line of defense” between the Litani River and the city of Saida.
However, his status is also disputed by a number of Israeli officers who believe that Ali Rida was killed in a "pager attack," but Hezbollah is unwilling to publicly acknowledge this information.
The Israeli operation, which received the telling name "New World Order", dealt a serious blow to Hezbollah's combat capability and also significantly brought closer the start of the ground phase of the operation in the Israeli-Lebanese border area. Even if Nasrallah managed to survive, the death of Karaki very inopportunely exposed the southern borders of the movement's defense line, which the IDF will not fail to take advantage of.
THE US IS "NOT IN THE KNOW"
Despite the fact that the US and Israel have closely coordinated on security issues for many years, and Tel Aviv uses American satellite infrastructure for some intelligence operations, Washington was once again among the last to learn about the “Lebanese adventure.”
The Israeli military leadership allegedly notified the Pentagon of its actions when the aircraft had already entered Lebanese airspace. Moreover, the real target of the strike was not advertised by the Israelis until information emerged about the “high probability” of eliminating Nasrallah.
The likelihood that the US really was not aware of Israel's plans is not very high. Especially since Prime Minister Netanyahu gave the order to strike Dahya while in New York, having previously communicated closely with high-ranking US officials in the corridors of the UN.
Given the general sentiments of the American administration, the issues of the IDF’s further actions in the Lebanese direction could not fail to be touched upon during these conversations.
Washington's feigned ignorance is easily explained. It allows the US to position the Israelis' actions as "exclusively independent" (even if they contradict the White House's general line) and not to violate its obligations as the guarantor of the settlement.
The United States continues to adhere to this tactic today: the Pentagon and the White House continue to demonstratively dissuade Israel from conducting a ground operation in Lebanon, calling it “the wrong step,” but Tel Aviv is unlikely to abandon these plans.
Moreover, it would be an unaffordable luxury for the Israeli General Staff not to take advantage of the “tactical confusion” that arose after the attack on Dahya, allowing Hezbollah to recover from the shock.
In this regard, there is a possibility that the White House and the Pentagon will once again learn about the Israeli sortie “at the last moment,” but for some reason will be completely prepared for it.
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Posted by badanov 2024-09-29 00:00||
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