After a week of severe blows by the IDF, Hezbollah tried to raise its head and respond, and during the last night, several dozen launches were carried out toward the north of the country. The rockets were aimed more south than usual, mainly at Nazareth and the Jezreel Valley, and were apparently aimed specifically at the Israeli Air Force base in Ramat David, which dominates the area. However, it seems that in the meantime Hezbollah’s attack has been foiled by Israel’s interception systems, especially Iron Dome, and most of the missiles and rockets have been detonated in the air. So far, it appears that the damage amounts to one wounded, fires near Migdal Ha’Emek caused by broken interceptions, as well as the loss of hours of sleep for residents of the north who were forced to lag due to alarms.
In recent days, the IDF has dealt Hezbollah a number of deadly blows: The first was the explosion of pagers on Tuesday, which led to thousands of wounded operatives; on the next day, radio devices were detonated that injured and killed hundreds more. On Friday, a building in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut was bombed, with a precise attack that killed 15 Hezbollah leaders, including Ibrahim Aqil, Nasrallah’s right-hand man and the leader of the military wing of the terrorist organization, along with all of the commanders of the Radwan Force, Hezbollah’s special units that were meant to invade Israel. During Saturday, hundreds of air force strikes were carried out against Hezbollah launchers and launching pads in order to thwart a revenge attack in Israel.
What are these attacks for, and what is the Israeli strategy? It seems that this is not a preparation for a ground invasion of Lebanon, since in such a situation the operations were to be carried out simultaneously and the IDF would have already begun the entrance; rather, it is apparently an attempt to bend Nasrallah’s hand and force him to declare the end of the war and to cut himself off from the Gaza front, so that the residents of the north can return to their homes. This can be likened to the process of exiting Egypt, when the IDF lands on Nasrallah-Pharaoh, beating after beating, in order to soften his hard heart.
