Important Takeaways:
- Israel is “prepared for a very intense operation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on a visit to the Lebanese border last month
- In Lebanon, Israel would face a larger, better-armed and more-professional foe, experts warn, and the threat of an even deeper military quagmire.
- Hezbollah insists it will not lay down its arms, or consider retreating from the Israeli border, until a cease-fire is in place in the Strip.
- Israeli military leaders have been drawing up plans for a Lebanon offensive for months
- Since the start of the operation in Gaza, 326 Israeli soldiers have been killed, more than four times the toll from the 2014 war against Hamas.
- To avert a Lebanon war, Israeli officials are demanding — through U.S. and European diplomats — that Hezbollah retreat about 10 miles north of the border, past the Litani River, a military demarcation agreed upon at the end of the 2006 war.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Lebanese Hezbollah group said it launched over 200 rockets on Thursday at several military bases in Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed one of its senior commanders.
- The attack by the Iran-backed militant group was one of the largest in the months long conflict along the Lebanon-Israel border, with tensions escalating in recent weeks.
- Israel on Wednesday acknowledged that it had killed Mohammad Naameh Nasser, who headed one of Hezbollah’s three regional divisions in southern Lebanon, a day earlier.
- The Israeli military said “numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets” had entered its territory from Lebanon, many of which it said were intercepted. It confirmed the death of one soldier in the barrage.
- After Hezbollah’s attack, Israel struck various towns in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said it hit Hezbollah’s “military structures” in the southern border towns of Ramyeh and Houla.
- Israeli jets also broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and other areas in the country.
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Important Takeaways:
- Fires rage in Galilee, Golan Heights after massive Hezbollah rocket and drone attack
- Fires are raging across numerous locations in the north after the massive Hezbollah rocket and drone attack.
- According to the Ynet news site, firefighters are tackling large blazes in at least 10 locations in the Galilee and Golan Heights after this morning’s assault by the Lebanon-based terror group.
- The news outlet says that at least one highway in the Golan Heights is blocked as a result of fires.
- Hezbollah launched some 200 rockets and 20 drones from Lebanon at northern Israel in the terror group’s major attack. It came a day after the IDF killed a senior Hezbollah commander.
- It says that some of the rockets and drones were shot down by air defense and fighter jets.
- In response, fighter jets struck several Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon’s Ramyeh and Houla, it adds.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran vows to back Hezbollah in fight with Israel as IRGC general renews threat of imminent missile strike
- Iran vowed on Tuesday to back the terrorist organization Hezbollah “by all means” against Israel if Jerusalem launches an offensive in neighboring Lebanon
- “All Lebanese people, Arab countries and members of the Axis of Resistance will support Lebanon against Israel,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “There would be a chance of expansion of the war to the whole region, in which all countries including Iran would become engaged.”
- “In that situation, we would have no choice, but to support Hezbollah by all means,” he added.
- Kharrazi noted that “the expansion of war is not in the interest of anyone – not Iran or the U.S.,” but his comments came just one day after a top Iranian commander said he was itching for the opportunity to levy more strikes against Israel
- Speaking to the families of Palestinians killed during the fight in the Gaza Strip on Monday, Brigadier General of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Amir Ali Hajizadeh said he is “hopeful” another strike will be carried out against Jerusalem following the first attack in April.
- “We are hopeful of the arrival of the opportunity for [conducting] Operation True Promise 2,” Hajizadeh said, according to Iranian-owned media outlet Mehr News Agency.
- The comments were in reference to the more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles Tehran reportedly fired at Israel on April 14, the majority of which were stopped by Israeli and U.S. forces.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Pentagon has warned Israel against any “miscalculation” along its northern border with Lebanon, as fighting between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia continues and Israeli leaders threaten to launch a full-scale cross-frontier incursion.
- Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the U.S. believes a diplomatic solution to the border tensions is still achievable and that “no one” would benefit from a new Israel-Lebanon war, which could plunge the region into fresh conflict
- Israeli troops, meanwhile, have been training for a possible incursion into southern Lebanon for several months, with “operational plans” for an offensive into Lebanon already “approved and validated,” according to the IDF.
- Hezbollah has said it will keep fighting until Israeli forces fully withdraw from Gaza. But Israel is demanding that Hezbollah pull back its forces north of the Litani River—around 18 miles north of the Israeli border—in accordance with a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution that sought to end the last major clash between the two sides.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Pentagon is moving U.S. military assets closer to Israel and Lebanon to be ready to evacuate Americans as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies
- U.S. officials are increasingly concerned Israel is going to carry out airstrikes and a possible ground offensive in Lebanon in the coming weeks.
- Israel wants to move Hezbollah farther away from the border and is pushing for a diplomatic solution, but if that does not work the Israel Defense Forces are ready to use force, an Israeli official said.
- The goal is to return quiet to northern Israel so that 60,000 Israelis who have left in the past eight months because of Hezbollah rocket fire can go home, the official said.
- The State Department estimated in 2022 that 86,000 Americans live in Lebanon. In 2006, the U.S. evacuated 15,000 people from the country during Israel’s war with Hezbollah.
- In a statement, Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said restoring calm along the Israel-Lebanon border “remains a top priority for the United States and must be of the utmost importance for both Lebanon and Israel. We continue to work toward a diplomatic resolution that would allow Israeli and Lebanese citizens to safely return to their homes and live in peace and security.”
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Important Takeaways:
- “The enemy knows very well that no place will be safe from our missiles and drones,” Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said on June 19.
- Keeping those weapons from hitting Israeli territory is the job of a sophisticated air defense system called Iron Dome.
- But some experts warn that Hezbollah’s arsenal could push the system past its limits.
- The Iranian-backed group has been conducting increasingly brazen attacks using exploding drones and low-flying missiles that Iron Dome has struggled to intercept.
- And last week, Hezbollah published a 10-minute-long surveillance video from an unmanned aerial vehicle that had slipped past multiple Iron Dome launchers.
- The implication was clear: Hezbollah has Iron Dome in its sights.
- Unlike the Palestinian group Hamas, Hezbollah is believed to have a large arsenal of precision-guided weapons that it could fire in a war with Israel.
- “Look, there’s not enough Iron Domes in the world to contend with the reported 100,000 or so rockets that Hezbollah may have”
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Important Takeaways:
- In a short interview with LifeSiteNews, Colonel Douglas Macgregor sounded the alarm about an Israeli attack on Hezbollah that could well widen the war, as well as the escalation of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
- We thank Colonel Macgregor for this interview, whose answers he wrote in the middle of last night.
- In recent weeks, you have sounded the alarm on the situation in Israel with regard to Hezbollah. What do you see happening very soon and when do you think it will happen?
- [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu must escalate or admit defeat. Attacking Hezbollah presents him with the opportunity to entangle American military power in his war for Jewish supremacy in the Near East. The prospect of employing U.S. military power (air and naval forces) against Israel’s enemies is probably appealing to Israelis.
- What will be the effects on the region in the Middle East and in the world should such an attack by Israel on Hezbollah take place within the next couple days?
- I expect the assault on Hezbollah to begin any time after June 24. The effects will be profound. More Muslims will flee to Europe. The economic life of the region will be destroyed, and Russia + China and Iran will likely directly engage Israeli and U.S. forces involved in the war.
- Do you expect Israel to use nuclear weapons?
- The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] can employ tactical nuclear weapons. Given the density of Hezbollah defenses and the numbers of rockets and missiles Hezbollah can launch against targets in Israel, a tactical nuclear weapon is the most appealing option. Heavy casualties in Gaza have reduced IDF fighting power. Israel cannot afford the heavy losses that systematic IDF conventional attacks on Southern Lebanon would produce. However, the use of these weapons would likely precipitate massive Iranian missile attacks against Israel in retaliation. From there the war will spread and other nation states will turn out to have nuclear weapons. Instead of abruptly ending the war as the Israelis hope, it will widen and lengthen the war with ominous implications for Israel’s very existence.
- What would you tell the leaders of our country in light of the escalation in both conflict regions, Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia?
- Washington is taking unacceptable risks in its relations with Moscow. It would be wise as well as humane to end the suffering in Ukraine. It is time for the [U.S. government] to admit defeat and reach an accommodation with Moscow that ends the war in Ukraine.
- Meanwhile, Israel is overreaching. It runs the risk of war with Iran and the whole region if it acts in Southern Lebanon as anticipated above. Washington has no strategic interest that justifies a regional war with Islam in the Near East. If Washington persists, it will discover that Russia will not abandon Iran and that many other countries, including China, will line up in support of Iran and Russia against Washington.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel is facing rising pressures from outside and within today. As the Jewish state is simply looking to protect its people from daily rocket attacks, the U.S. is pushing for a diplomatic solution to the fighting between Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israel before it turns into a full-blown war. Meanwhile, Israel’s Supreme Court ruling Tuesday concerning the drafting of ultra-Orthodox men could also pose problems for Netanyahu’s government.
- U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Hezbollah that Washington can’t stop Israel from going to war to prevent the terror group’s daily attacks on the north.
- “Hezbollah’s provocations threaten to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that they do not want,” Austin said Tuesday. “And such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon, and it would be devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians.”
- Yoav Gallant says Israel is determined to establish security in the north and bring back some 80,000 citizens evacuated from their homes. He asked the U.S. to focus on heading off a larger threat: Iran getting nuclear weapons.
- “The greatest threat to the future of the world and the future of our region is Iran. And time is running out,” Gallant insisted.
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Important Takeaways:
- In a video message, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said, “In case an inclusive war is imposed on Lebanon, the resistance will fight without restraints, without rules, without limits.”
- The minute-long clip then shows footage of various sites in central Israel, along with their GPS coordinates.
- “Whoever thinks of war against us, will regret it,” the video ends.
- The White House official reportedly rejected Jerusalem’s demand that a diplomatic deal to end the conflict in the north be based on the implementation of U.N. Security Resolution 1701—which was adopted to end the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and calls for a demilitarized zone from the Blue Line to the Litani River some 18 miles to the north.
- Instead, he said it should include a range of options, including moving Hezbollah six miles from the border. He stressed that the United States was concerned about further escalation and called for calm on both sides.
- Iran-backed Hezbollah has attacked northern Israel nearly every day since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, killing more than 20 people and causing widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians remain internally displaced due to the ongoing violence.
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