The war has shifted to a more dangerous phase, with Israel confronting Iran’s top Hezbollah forces on its northern border and degrading their capacity to attack.
In my piece for this weekend and a post on the Corner last night, I trace the history of Hezbollah, seemingly forgotten — indeed, consciously evaded — by the pro-Islamist, Israel-hostile, blame-America-always Left. It’s worth a refresher since the war in the Middle East has noticeably shifted to a new, more dangerous phase.
The Biden-Harris administration has lectured Israel for 50 weeks not to “escalate” the fighting — and remember, this is a ceaseless defensive war against an existential threat, the most recent “escalation” of which began with the barbarities of October 7 that were launched from the Gaza Strip by Iran-backed Hamas, immediately after which Hezbollah (Iran’s forward jihadist force in Lebanon) began firing missiles into northern Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces have substantially quelled Hamas as a fighting force, although its leader, Yahya Sinwar, and scattered elements are dug into the elaborate underground tunnel network and continue to hold 97 hostages, including four Americans (Edan Alexander, Omer Neutra, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and Keith Seigel) — a fact rarely discussed in the media-Democrat complex with the presidential election just six weeks away. (The storyline is that Netanyahu’s intransigence, not Biden-Harris passivity due to the Islamist sympathies of the Democratic base, is to blame — notwithstanding that it is Hamas that has rejected the sundry cease-fire plans.)
In the interim, however, Hezbollah, with over 150,000 Iranian-manufactured missiles and drones (far more sophisticated than the Hamas arsenal) has stepped up its aerial barrages. These have been complemented with attacks by Iran-backed jihadist groups based in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank, on Israel’s eastern border), and by aerial attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen (about 1,200 miles away).
Given progressive Democrats’ sudden touching concern about collateral damage from Israel’s defensive operations against Hezbollah aggressors, who have reveled in killing hundreds of Americans while pursuing their annihilationist ambitions against Israel, it is worth noting that Hezbollah has fired 8,000 rockets at Israel since October 7, as the Long War Journal reports. Among other security nightmares, this has forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate their communities, effectively constricting Israel’s territory (the country is only about the size of New Jersey).
Regarding Operation Grim Beeper, while the “official” death toll (i.e., the number given by the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese Health Ministry) is still 32, it is undoubtedly much higher, with upwards of 3,000 Hezbollah operatives injured, and a high percentage of these severely so.
Besides the grim beeper operation, Israel carried out a strike on Hezbollah leadership that may have been even more significant than original reports suggested. Note that the jihadists chose to meet in what they mistakenly believed was an underground safe house in the Dahiyah neighborhood of Beirut. That is, quite apart from the beeper operation’s direct military benefit of killing and otherwise neutralizing terrorists (which is a topic of my aforementioned weekend piece), an equally valuable indirect benefit is that — with their communications lethally compromised — top Hezbollah commanders believed they had to meet in person. This made them vulnerable to a missile attack that, in the event, resembled a decapitation strike.
Killed in the IDF’s Beirut bombardment was Ibrahim Aqil (also transliterated “Aqeel”), the head of operations unit — among Hezbollah’s highest ranking operatives. For information on Aqil, the U.S. government had offered a $7 million reward due to his long career of mass-murdering Americans. (Despite that, the Biden-Harris White House — of course — rushed to announce that it had been unaware Aqil was targeted by Israel.) Aqil is said to have been meeting with his subordinate commanders of Hezbollah’s elite “Radwan” force. The name — Fawj al-Hajj Radwan — comes from the alias used by Hezbollah’s notorious leader, Imad Mugniyah (who is extensively discussed in my weekend piece, as well as the post last night on the mid ’80 torture-murder of William Buckley, at the time the CIA’s station chief in Lebanon).
If you’re concerned about civilian casualties, note that for this high-level pow-wow to plot more mass-murder attacks Hezbollah’s leaders chose to meet underneath a residential building — as the IDF observes, using Lebanese civilians as human shields, the jihadist MO. The IDF says its strike eliminated Radwan’s “entire top command”; also among the more than 15 top terrorists killed was Ahmed Wahabi, the head of Hezbollah’s training unit and a former Radwan force commander, according to the Times of Israel.
The IDF maintains that the Hezbollah leaders were planning an October 7-style attack to capture communities in northern Israel while killing and abducting Israeli citizens.
In the glare of the beeper operation and the elimination of top-tier Hezbollah commanders, a crucially important development has gotten little attention: Israel has stepped up attacks on Hezbollah missile launchers.
The Jerusalem Post’s Yonah Jeremy Bomb explains that, while Hezbollah has those 150,000 missiles, it doesn’t have 150,000 launching facilities — not even close. In the preemptive strike back on August 25, Israeli warplanes took out about 250 launchers. In attacks on Thursday (September 19), they destroyed about 100 more, in addition to other weaponry and military infrastructure. This has not eliminated Hezbollah’s capacity to carry out a significant aerial bombing of Israel — particularly given the superior quality of some of its missiles. But that capacity has been markedly degraded.
Fighting on Israel’s northern border has persisted today. Hezbollah is said to have shot about 25 rockets that caused some fires but not injuries. The IDF, meantime, continued striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.