Israel’s Air Force struck over 300 Hezbollah targets during two major rounds of strikes early Monday, the Israeli press reports.
After warning civilians to evacuate targeted areas, as it customarily does (unlike the jihadist aggressors who started the war and who indiscriminately target residential areas and civilian infrastructure), the IDF hit Hezbollah military targets. These included sites in the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah’s stronghold in eastern Lebanon. Israel issued the warnings, in part, by taking control of Lebanese radio broadcasts.
Israel has now carried out six bombing waves since last Thursday. The main targets have been missile stocks and launchers. The IDF raids came in response to Hezbollah’s efforts over the weekend to press its aerial attacks deeper into Israeli territory. Up until now (i.e., through the 50 weeks since the Iran-backed terrorist group began regular rocket, missile, and drone strikes, right after Iran-backed Hamas executed its October 7 attacks), Hezbollah has mainly concentrated its fire on Israel’s northern border area, firing some 8,000 aerial weapons.
Hezbollah is on its heels after the worst week in its history.
First, between 3,000 and 4,000 of its operatives were wounded — at least 32 killed and many badly disabled — by Israel’s sabotage of its pagers and other communications devices.
The communications breakdown induced Hezbollah’s top commanders to meet in person in Beirut to plot a northern-Israel-targeted version of the October 7 barbarities Hamas launched from Gaza. The result was that at least 16 members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, including two of the terror organization’s top-ranking figures, were killed in an IDF aerial strike.
Meanwhile, Israel is continuing to pound strategic Hezbollah military infrastructure in Lebanon. In the last month, it is estimated that over 400 launchers have been destroyed, in addition to thousands of aerial bombs. Undoubtedly, the attacks carried out earlier today have done additional damage — we’ll watch for an assessment in coming days. As I noted Saturday, Hezbollah’s Iran-supplied arsenal of over 150,000 missiles and rockets is only a fierce threat if those weapons can be launched.
Trying to regain its footing, Hezbollah launched a combination of about 150 rockets and drones Sunday morning. The direct damage was relatively minor. One civilian was killed — a teenager who appears to have panicked when the sirens sounded and lost control of the car he was driving. Six others were wounded, mainly from shrapnel damage, and some homes were damaged. In the main, though, the Israelis know the drill all too well: Most of the bombs are intercepted, and citizens get to their safe rooms to avoid casualties from falling shrapnel and any missiles that get through Iron Dome.
The indirect effects of Hezbollah’s aggression over the past year are more significant. As NR’s Alex Welz has reported, some of Sunday’s strikes by the terrorist organization pressed more deeply into northern Israeli territory than previous barrages since the onslaught began right after Hamas’s October attacks. Hezbollah also attempted to bomb the Ramat David military facility in the northern coastal city of Haifa, one of Israel’s most important air bases (the only one in the north).
The plan is obvious: If Hezbollah could expand the combat zones and degrade Israel’s air defense, that would force the evacuation of more communities. Other than the recovery of hostages still held by Hamas (including four Americans), the evacuation of the tens of thousands of Israelis in the northern border areas is the most consequential political controversy in Israel at the moment. It is Israel’s principal rationale for the stepped up attacks on Hezbollah.
Also of significance this weekend: The self-styled the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, another Iranian-backed jihadist group, fired two cruise missiles and two drones at Israel. They were aimed at northern and southern Israel, but were shot down.
Since October 7, Iran and its proxies have fired at Israel from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, as well as from Gaza and the West Bank. Yet, the Biden-Harris administration persists in hectoring Israel for “escalating” the war.
Upon taking office, the Biden-Harris administration abandoned former president Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. The ensuing relaxation of sanctions resulted in a windfall of tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue, which Iran uses to underwrite Hezbollah and arm Tehran’s proxies in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen — even as the simultaneous Biden-Harris enticements in pleading for Iran to revive the delusional Obama-Biden nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) have put Iran on the cusp of test-firing atomic weapons.
The Biden-Harris point-man on reviving the JCPOA, Robert Malley, has had his security clearance suspended on suspicion of transferring classified intelligence to Iran; the Washington Free Beacon reported last week that, despite being aware of Malley’s suspected misconduct, the Biden-Harris State Department dragged its feet in excluding him from high-level meetings and sensitive intelligence.
One of Malley’s top aides in the JCPOA negotiations was Ariane Tabatabai — an academic who worked with the Iranian foreign ministry in its “Iran Experts Initiative,” which advocated on behalf of Tehran’s policy positions and against the maximum pressure campaign. The Biden-Harris administration has shifted Tabatabai to the Pentagon, which she is chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, a critical counterterrorism post that requires a high security clearance.
The Free Beacon has also reported that, while participating in the Iran Experts Initiative, Tabatabai co-wrote published articles with Phil Gordon, including a March 2020 piece in which they contended that sanctions against Iran would create a “catastrophe.” Gordon is currently Vice President Harris’s national-security adviser; it is anticipated that he would occupy a top post if Harris wins the presidential election in six weeks.
