Yesterday (Wednesday), Hezbollah crossed another red line when it carried out a Grad missile attack aimed at the main military base of the northern corps, near Safed. Dozens of missiles were fired, some of them hitting military buildings and some hitting open ground. Several soldiers and civilians were injured, and Staff Sergeant Amar Banjo (20), a resident of Moshav Gia near Ashkelon Beach, was killed. Amar tried to reach a protected room, but she was late – and now potential failures are being tested with the Alert system and in the ‘Iron Dome’ performance. “She had a huge heart,” acquaintances said about her.
In response, the IDF carried out a large-scale air strike against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, in a number of Shiite villages such as Bint’Jebel, Parana, Donin, and more. According to the reports, at least 10 Lebanese were killed, including some civilians and at least 3 terrorists (which raises the number of fatalities of the Lebanese organization to the threshold of 200). Among the targets attacked were the Radwan Corps infrastructure, the terrorist organization’s offensive force, whose proximity to the border threatens the northern settlements, and without its distancing – the quiet will not be able to return to the border.
The Hezbollah attack is a message to Israel – the terrorist organization is trying to demonstrate that it is not deterred by Israel, and that as far as it is concerned, the conflict constitutes a limited conflict – between armies (Hezbollah versus the IDF) and not between countries (Lebanon versus Israel). The conduct is consistent with Nasrallah’s last speech, in which he threatened that he would continue to harm Israel as long as it was fighting in Gaza – that means, that for him, this is only a military confrontation. Of course, this is not consistent with the organization’s conduct on the ground (including many injuries to civilian homes and civilians – nearly 10 fatalities since the outbreak of the war), and certainly not with Israel’s security interests. A limited war sounds like a beautiful fantasy at this time, but if the situation continues as it is now, there seems to be no escape from an all-out war. “There are very high achievements against Hezbollah in the north,” said IDF chief of staff Halevi yesterday, at a meeting with angry heads of authorities of the north. “But we keep acting – it’s not the time to stop. There is still a long way to go, and we will go together.”
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