Is Raf OK? -- Installment #141
2024-09-29 -- Tel Aviv
First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with the expanded Gaza Explainer in #133 and #120.
Tags: Lots of video; Large Relief Area
בִּנְפֹ֣ל (אויביך) [א֭וֹיִבְךָ] אַל־תִּשְׂמָ֑ח וּ֝בִכָּשְׁל֗וֹ אַל־יָגֵ֥ל לִבֶּֽךָ
When your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and when he stumbles, let your heart not be merry. (Proverbs 24:17)
One day last week, at 6:30 AM, there was a red alert in Tel Aviv. We all trotted off to our respective safe spaces. This is the biggest escalation yet by Hezbollah (the only two left that Raf can think of would be rocketing the airport or a ground invasion).
While Hezbollah rocket attacks in the north have killed, injured and destroyed, this one caused none.
I did discover that with my phone off, the windows closed (for the AC) and earplugs in, the air raid siren woke me up fine.
And... I submitted my American ballot... Voting is easier and with a crazy large window when voting from abroad. I get to vote by email, six or eight weeks in advance of the election. Elections in Israel are not expected any time soon. So something useful was done. The only thing I missed... The Stranger's crazy election guide (so much fun to read while voting).
I'll manage.
Mail
Some of the text in #140's Relief is off... (M.T.)
You are right. Alef and Vav have been tweaked. Thank you!
Were you in Tel Aviv this morning? What is going to happen next?
On the phone with a friend. Her son just returned from a trip to Asia and was immediately called up to his reserve unit which is now on the northern border. "What do you think is going to happen?" I am asked.
Well, the last year has been one of incremental escalation, with large increments every week for the past few weeks. So, if I had to estimate, I would say it will continue to escalate. (I hate estimating. It is the future. Anything can change.)
And, as quoted in Haaretz:
"There's no doubt that Hezbollah has sustained a very severe blow," a senior army official said, but he was also quick to damp enthusiasm in this regard. "Even if 50 percent of the organization's launch capacity has been destroyed, that still leaves it with more than 100,000 rockets and missiles that are ready to launch at the home front in Israel. That's something that cannot be minimized."
(It is thought that about half of Hezbollah's armory has been destroyed at this point. It is also observed, however, that Hezbollah's military responses to the attacks on Nasrallah and others have been... small (really small, in the scheme of things). Available information indicates that the organization is radically weakened.)
Another acquaintance: "I'm fine because my son is home. He was in the north (with his unit on the border with Lebanon), fell off his tank and broke a leg. So he is home and I am happy. He is miserable because he isn't with his unit to support his friends, but I am happy."
The History of Thought
In #120 I talked about Hezbollah as the most heavily armed Non State Actor in the world, with over 150,000 rockets and missles (PDF here).
Hezbollah's "cocked gun" has been a dynamic in this region for ten years. Twenty. I (echoing everyone else) have always said: Hezbollah has 100,000+ rockets including advanced ground-to-ground rockets. They launch a huge barrage at, say, Israel's single international airport, and that will be a disaster. For the past year, the north of Israel has been under constant bombardment by Hezbollah, resulting in many thousands of damaged and destroyed buildings and around seventy thousand internal refugees.
It is now appearing that Hezbollah isn't going to do that. Or isn't capable, after the pounding of recent weeks, or the loss of their entire command chain.
A week ago, after the pager attack, Defense Minister Galant said:
"The Hezbollah of today is not the Hezbollah of last week."
Galant's remarks were said during a training exercise that simulated a ground operation in Lebanon and are widely quoted by leading Arab channels.
And the Hezbollah of today?
Media
Speaking of the "Media not helping" -- an example from Jenin:
Notice how many journalists "lay in wait" to document a chance that an IDF soldier will harm a resident of Jenin who is premeditatedly provoking the forces...
What would have happened to him if he had behaved like that on the military vehicles of any other country in this region?
The IDF doesn't want to be in Jenin... No Israelis want to be in Jenin.
Postmark
Bedouin Village Bir al-Makhsor
After the chickens and cows, Nasrallah's rockets hit a goat farm in the Bedouin village of Bir al-Makhsor (an Israeli Arab village).
Lebanon
Documentation of an Iranian Fatah 110 missile among the ruins of a building attacked by the IDF in Lebanon.
Before and after photos published by the IDF, showing rockets and launchers in buildings attacked by the air force ("before" is on the right, "after" on the left):
And from Lebanese social media, a clip showing rockets going here and there after a building was bombed by the IDF:
Beirut: Friday Eve through Saturday Eve
Where Nasrallah was killed in Dahieh, Beirut. Note the depth of the hole.
IDF: More Than 20 Additional Terrorists Were Eliminated Alongside Hassan Nasrallah In the Strike on Hezbollah’s Central Headquarters
Iranian sources identified with the regime:
Amid (equivalent to Brigadier General) Abbas Nilproshan, one of the senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards (apparently the operations officer of the Quds Force), was killed in an attack in Dahieh yesterday.Iranian sources: along with Abbas Nilproshan, other Iranian officers who were at the Hezbollah headquarters in Dahieh were killed.
Another day, another single minded military dug in below civilians: Hamas & Hezbollah: The same strategy.
Beirut, Yesterday (Saturday)
Israel took over the transmission frequency in the control tower in of the Beirut International Airport and issued an order to prevent an Iranian plane from landing in Lebanon. [Note the context: The plane is in the air, en route to Beirut, and Israel comes over the Beirut airport radio telling the plane not to land.]
The Lebanese MTV network reports from sources in the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works (held by Ali Hamieh, a Hezbollah minister) that Israel has taken over the broadcast frequency at the international airport in Beirut and issued instructions preventing an Iranian plane from landing. If the Iranian plane does not comply, "Force will be used".
Following this, the Lebanese Minister of Transport (as mentioned, a Hezbollah member) ordered the Iranian plane not to land in Beirut.
Subsequent to this, Iran announced suspension of all flights to from Iran to Lebanon.
Beirut: Other
IDF spokesman:
The IDF is now targeting weapons belonging to the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which were stored in civilian buildings in Dahieh in Beirut.
Some of the results of those attacks. Notice the secondary flashes and flare ups (those are secondary explosions, e.g. the munitions at the location exploding.)
To be clear: The above evidences the storage of large quantities of armaments in the heart of Beirut.
Hezbollah published an official denial regarding the sites of the attacks in Dahieh:
An announcement on behalf of the public relations department in Hezbollah:
There is no truth in the enemy's false claims about the discovery of weapons and weapon depots in the civilian buildings that were attacked in the Dahieh of Beirut a short time ago.
Hezbollah Social Media
Has resumed posting casualties (which stopped during the intense bombing a few days ago). Though they omitted the heavy loss days to save face.
In their operational announcements, Hezbollah seems to have dropped the pretense of attacking only Israeli military sites and now acknowledges attacking civilian targets:
Hezbollah accepts responsibility for launching 80 rockets towards the northern Israeli city of Safed. (That barrage damaged a home for seniors.)
Tripoli (North Lebanon)
The Sunnis explain to the displaced people from southern Lebanon in a way that is not ambiguous - there is no entry into Tripoli with Hezbollah signs!
"Take it down before we break your windshield."
Elsewhere in Lebanon
Lebanese social media: Attempts to mislead the Israeli Air Force using vehicles that appear to be carrying launchers in various villages in Lebanon.
Acre
Journalist Muhammad Majadala reports:
عكا: سقوط غالبية القذائف في البحر
Acre: Most of the Hezbollah rockets launched Friday/Saturday fell in the sea.
A commentator asks: Hezbollah has reset... after the chickens, cows, and goats, now targeting the Israeli fishing industry?
Syria: Idlib -- Aftermath of Nasrallah...
Intense joy in Idlib in Syria.
Pay attention to what the Syrian who joins the video on the left says:
We are coming to catch you, Bashar (Al-Assad)!!
And
On the signs it says:
"Thank you Netanyahu. Now the head of the criminal Bashar Assad."
"Thank you Netanyahu. It warmed the hearts of Syrian children."
Southern Syria: The celebrations for the elimination of Nasrallah are spreading throughout southern Syria, from where the opposition to the Assad regime began in 2011 and as a result the civil war in Syria broke out.
Saturday night, public celebrations were recorded in:
Dael
Ankhel
Kiheel
Al Karak
Nassib
Nawa
Germany
The celebrations of the Syrian exiles in Germany of the death of Nasrallah.
(Recall that over a million Syrian refugees have been absorbed in Germany, fleeing the brutal civil war in Syria, which ran hot from 2011 to 2020 and continues to this day. This conflict killed between half and two thirds of a million people and caused the displacement of around thirteen million people. Germany has the largest Syrian population outside the Middle East.)
IDF Spokesperson in Arabic
The question mark on the last dominoes says:
More to come...
Relief Area
Alef
They are labelled: Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda
Bet
Gimmel
Dalet
In the aftermath of Hezbollah's first rocket at central Israel, a journalist interviews schoolkids (who were all in shelters at 6:30 this morning):
Journalist: Do you have anything to say to the government?
Kid: Yeah, that Bibi should retire already!
Hey
The story between the leadership of Hamas and the Iranian leadership on one foot:
First there are two Hamas leaders
One is killed
The second is killed
The Iranian President takes a trip to the U.S. to meet leaders gathered at the U.N.
Vav
If you put the pager to your nose, you will see a picture of a naked woman... I swear it works!
(This is an allusion to the virgins promised to Shahids [Muslim martyrs])
Zayin: In Tinder...
Chet: Resolution 1701 be like
(U.N. Resolution 1701 calls for a U.N. force, UNIFIL, to keep Hezbollah several miles away from the border with Israel. They haven't been doing it.... So… blame Israel…)
Tet
Yod: Channels affiliated with the Iranian opposition.
If you get to Israel in the next couple of months, trot down to the Tower of David Museum for the Navel of the World exhibit -- the first ever art exhibit in a space called the Kishle (an Ottoman structure containing walls from the First and Second Temples) behind the museum itself (you enter through the museum):
We were walking home from a Friday night dinner when a car blasting music asked if we had "heard the news" about Nasrallah being killed. We hadn't, and I am not sure what he had heard that convinced him.
Lebanon has been a failed state for decades. A beautiful country, rich in tradition—Beirut was known as the ‘Paris of the Middle East.’ In recent years featuring a brutal dictatorship to the east (Syria) and a corrupt, violent Shia minority (about 30%) that act as warlords (enriching themselves) and an Iranian proxy.
War does not make me happy.
The world, and Lebanon, is better without Hezbollah.
To Peace & Happy New Year,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T., A.K.Z.)