Important Takeaways:
- The White House on Tuesday said the US believes Iran is preparing an imminent ballistic missile attack against Israel.
- “The United States has indications that Iran is preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel. We are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend Israel against this attack. A direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran,” a senior White House official said in a statement.
- “As of this moment, Israel does not perceive imminent threat from Iran,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
- During a short video message, Hagari said Israeli military planes are currently “scanning the sky” for any imminent threat from Iran.
- “We are on peak alert both on the offensive and the defensive,” Hagari added, warning Iran that any attack on Israel would “have consequences.” Tensions between Israel and Iran have ratcheted up significantly in recent weeks as Israel has stepped up its efforts against Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Iran-backed militant group.
- Israel on Monday launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah.
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Important Takeaways:
- Announcing the incursion in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF said that “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” had begun several hours earlier.
- It said they were focused on “Hezbollah targets and infrastructure” in a number of Lebanese villages along the border that posed an immediate threat to Israeli towns on the other side of the Blue Line.
- Ground troops operating inside southern Lebanon were being assisted by air and artillery forces
- The start of the IDF’s ground offensive came some two weeks into intensified fighting with Hezbollah, and after Operation Northern Arrows was launched earlier in September to meet the recently declared war goal of bringing residents of the north back to their homes following their evacuation last October under heavy rocket fire from the Lebanese terror group.
- In its statement on Tuesday morning, the military stressed that it was “continuing to operate to achieve the goals of the war and is doing everything necessary to defend the citizens of Israel and return the citizens of northern Israel to their homes.”
- In the hours leading up to the limited raids, several European countries began pulling their diplomats and citizens out of Lebanon.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israeli Defense Forces carried out a “precise strike” on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon
- IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the headquarters were intentionally built in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut under residential buildings “as part of Hezbollah’s strategy of using Lebanese people as human shields.”
- Security sources in Lebanon said the attack targeted an area where top Hezbollah officials are usually based.
- It was the heaviest attack in Beirut in almost a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
- The strikes hit Beirut shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue Israel’s attacks on Iranian-backed fighters in Lebanon in a closely watched United Nations speech, as hopes faded for a ceasefire that could head off an all-out regional war.
- The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has drastically escalated over the last month as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has begun targeting the terrorist network’s hot spots and military storage units, all of which are strategically embedded within civilian villages.
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Important Takeaways:
- “There will be no ceasefire in the north,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X. “We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents.”
- An Israeli warplane struck the edges of the capital Beirut, killing two people and wounding 15, including a woman in critical condition, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
- The strike killed the head of one of Hezbollah’s air force units, Mohammad Surur, two security sources said, the latest senior Hezbollah commander to be targeted in days of assassinations hitting the group’s top ranks.
- Israel has vowed to secure its north and return thousands of citizens to communities there who have evacuated since Hezbollah launched a campaign of cross-border strikes last year in solidarity with Palestinian militants fighting in Gaza.
- Israel’s airstrikes have sharply intensified since Monday, when more than 550 people were killed in Lebanon’s deadliest day since the end of a 1975-1990 civil war.
- The bombing follows attacks last week when pagers and walkie talkies exploded across Lebanon, killing scores of people and wounding thousands including Hezbollah members.
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Important Takeaways:
- A senior Israeli Air Force officer says the airstrikes carried out over the past day against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon are the most extensive the IAF has carried out in its history.
- More than 1,600 Hezbollah sites, mostly homes where weapons were stored, were struck in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley within a day, according to the IDF.
- The senior IAF officer says the widespread airstrikes are “changing the operational situation in the north, changing the reality.”
- He says Hezbollah had two main capabilities that it built up over decades: the elite Radwan Force and its arsenal of rockets, missiles, and drones.
- The top leadership of the Radwan Force, tasked with invading Israel, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.
- Hezbollah’s rocket and drone capabilities have been targeted across Lebanon in the past day.
- The official says the IAF is working to strike “all of their rocket capabilities, all of them” and that it is “very determined” to do so.
- Hezbollah still has rocket capabilities, but they have been harmed significantly in the recent strikes, the official says.
- The official says Hezbollah has endangered Lebanese civilians twofold: first by placing the weapons in their homes, and second by telling civilians to ignore the IDF’s evacuation calls, he says.
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Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. is sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East in response to a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said Monday.
- Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, would not say how many more forces would be deployed or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. now has about 40,000 troops in the region.
- “In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional U.S. military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” Ryder said. “But for operational security reasons, I’m not going to comment on or provide specifics.”
- The State Department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.
- Ryder would not say if the additional forces might support the evacuation of American citizens if needed.
- “Given the tensions, given the escalation, as I highlighted, there is the potential for a wider regional conflict. I don’t think we’re there yet, but it’s a dangerous situation,” Ryder said.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Israeli strikes targeted infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon, including the areas of Chihine, Tayibe, Blida, Meiss El Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday. Israel also struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in Khiam.
- “The IDF will continue to operate against the threat of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in order to defend the State of Israel,” the IDF said in a statement.
- “Yes, we were subjected to a huge and severe blow,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said. “The enemy crossed all boundaries and red lines. The enemy will face a severe and fair punishment from where they expect and don’t expect.”
- “The Hezbollah terrorist organization has turned southern Lebanon into a combat zone. For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them, and used civilians as human shields,” Israel’s military said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Just one day after pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded, more electronic devices detonated in Lebanon Wednesday in what appeared to be a second wave of sophisticated, deadly attacks that targeted an extraordinary number of people.
- Both attacks, which are widely believed to be carried out by Israel, have hiked fears that the two sides’ simmering conflict could escalate into all-out war.
- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday the mass bombing attack on the group’s communications devices was a “severe blow” and said Israel had crossed a “red line.”
- Tuesday’s explosions were most likely the result of supply-chain interference, several experts told the AP — noting that very small explosive devices may have been built into the pagers prior to their delivery to Hezbollah, and then all remotely triggered simultaneously, possibly with a radio signal.
- The specifics of Wednesday’s explosions are still uncertain. But reports of more electronic devices exploding may suggest even greater infiltration of boobytrap-like interference in Lebanon’s supply chain.
- An attack of this caliber requires building the relationships needed to gain physical access to the pagers before they were sold; developing the technology that would be embedded in the devices; and developing sources who can confirm that the targets were carrying the pagers.
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Important Takeaways:
- How do we know that the coming days, weeks, and month or two before winter are potentially explosive?
- It is not just Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who told US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Monday, that the possibility for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in the North is running out.
- It is not just the rumors that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to replace Gallant with Gideon Sa’ar as defense minister in order to have greater support for a major operation against Hezbollah.
- Throughout, the main reason not to enter into war with Hezbollah was to avoid distractions that might handicap the IDF from its goal of taking apart all 24 of Hamas’s battalions in Gaza.
- Gallant declared Hamas’s last battalion in Rafah defeated on August 21, nearly a month ago.
- Despite Netanyahu’s publicly threatening words and tone, another major reason that war has not broken out is that the prime minister was privately terrified of how many Israelis might die from an estimated Hezbollah onslaught of 6,000-8,000 rockets per day.
- August 25 is when all of that changed – radically.
- On that day, Hezbollah planned to launch several hundred, possibly up to 1,000 rockets on Israel, including on critical intelligence headquarters bases north of Tel Aviv.
- Yet, on August 25, the IDF did not just beat Hezbollah – it cleaned house.
- The military blew up the vast majority of the rockets and drones with which Hezbollah had intended to attack Israel before these threats could even be launched.
- Suddenly, Netanyahu has a newfound confidence: that he actually can afford a major operation against Hezbollah – with much fewer losses to the home front than he had expected.
- So, what if – instead of 5,000-10,000 dead Israelis from tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets over several weeks – he could hit Hezbollah harder than it’s ever been hit before and destroy so many of its rocket launchers on the ground that Israeli casualties might not be just smaller but exponentially smaller?
- Finally, the winter factor comes into play.
- Sources have told the Post that if more than 4-6 weeks pass without an operation, it may be impossible – or much harder – to carry out such an operation until Spring 2025.
- This would mean condemning the northern residents to another 6 months outside of their homes, something becoming increasingly untenable domestically in Israel.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced early Sunday morning local time that it had launched a preemptive strike on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon to thwart a major imminent attack by the Iran-backed terror group.
- Residents of northern Israel were advised to enter bomb shelters and “safe rooms” in their homes in anticipation of a response by Hezbollah. Israel’s missile defense system, notably the Iron Dome, was said to be intercepting rockets.
- Israel’s Army Radio reported that residents were being advised to take shelter even in cities relatively far from the northern border, such as the port city of Haifa, which is in the north of the country but typically safe from rockets.
- In a statement in Hebrew, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that the military had detected that Hezbollah was about to fire a large barrage of rockets and missiles into Israel. Therefore, he said, the Israel Air Force (IAF) had taken preemptive action. A response was expected from Hezbollah, and therefore he said that residents of the north should enter safe rooms for at least ten minutes. He stressed that Israel’s defenses were “not hermetic.”
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