fighting the war as if there are no negotiations, and
negotiating as if there is no war
Avi Melamed
It is dangerous to be found in the company of God's enemies
Operation Northern Arrows - Path to War
Israel conducted large-scale airstrikes, targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and operatives in Lebanon, especially in southern regions. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to this escalation as a "new phase" in their confrontation, aiming to secure Israel’s northern communities. This came amidst ongoing tensions from Hezbollah's involvement in the wider conflict triggered by Hamas's actions against Israel.
On 15 September 2024, the Israeli cabinet voted to officially add the return of residents to the North as an official war goal. Netanyahu added a fourth goal to his war objectives, including returning evacuated Israelis to those areas in the north. But what exactly that means and the measures that will be taken – it’s still unclear. There has been no sort of plan whatsoever for Israel’s northern border. The evacuation of tens of thousands of people in these towns and settlements has been extended time and time again with no sort of timeline as to when they’re going to go back.
Israel’s defence minister declared the start of a “new phase” of the war on Gaza as Israel turned its focus towards the northern front against Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. Yoav Gallant made no mention of the mysterious explosions of electronic devices in Lebanon. But he praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying “the results are very impressive”. After months of war in Gaza, “the centre of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces”, said Gallant. “We are at the start of a new phase in the war – it requires courage, determination and perseverance.”
The Israeli army announced it was transferring the 98th Division from the Gaza Strip to the northern border with Lebanon as tensions continue to escalate there. With about 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers, the paratroopers and commandos would join the 36th Division under the Northern Command. “With peak readiness on the northern front, the Israeli army decided to move the elite 98th brigade there,” according to Israeli Army Radio. “The brigade was originally scheduled to continue fighting in Gaza, but it was decided in recent days to transfer it north.”
The Chief of Staff, Lt. Col. Herzi Halevi, finalized the approval of plans for the northern sector. The IDF is now attacking Hezbollah's targets in Lebanon to damage and destroy the organization's terrorist capabilities and military infrastructure. Hezbollah has turned southern Leb anon into a battlefield, and for decades armed the homes of the citizens with weapons, dug tunnels under them and used them as human shields. The IDF is working to create security in the north that will allow the residents to return to their homes, and to achieve all the other war goals.
On 19 September 2024, fighter jets of the Air Force attacked in two hours, under the direction of Amman and the Northern Command, hundreds of launch pads that were ready for immediate launch into the territory of the State of Israel. Starting in the afternoon, a total of about 100 launchers and other military infrastructure were attacked, including about 1,000 launch canisters that were ready for immediate launch.
On 20 September 2024, under the precise intelligence direction of the Intelligence Division, Air Force fighter jets targeted the Beirut area and killed Ibrahim Akil , the head of the Hezbollah terrorist organization's operations team, the acting commander of the Radwan unit and the commander of the "Plan for the Conquest of the Galilee". The number of casualties from the Israeli attack on the Southern Suburb of Beirut has risen to 37, including children and women, announced the Public Health Emergency Operations Center, affiliated with the Lebanese Ministry of Health, on 21 September 2024. Al Mayadeen's correspondent added that "there are still 16 people missing in the building targeted by Israeli planes.
Yoav Gallant wrote: "The IDF's impressive attack on the Da'ahiya of Beirut thwarted Hezbollah's chain of operational command, but also led to the closing of an important circle for the State of Israel, for the IDF, and personally - for me as well. Exactly 27 years ago, in September 1997, 12 of the fighters of the 13th Fleet, my friends and subordinates, who went on an operational activity deep in Lebanon under the command of the late Lt. Col. Yossi Korkin, fell in the difficult battle in Anzaria. "The boat disaster" happened a few months after I finished my position as the commander of the unit. I remember very well the fast drive from the Gaza unit, which I commanded at the time, to the Atlit naval base - those were particularly difficult hours. From then until today, I embrace the bereaved families, visit the graves of the warriors, and proudly remember their heroism every day. The commanders of that terrorist ambush in Hezbollah were Ibrahim Akil and Ahmed Wahbi - yesterday, they were killed while they were engaged in the preparation of additional terrorist operations against the State of Israel - the circle is closed. This is our commitment to the fallen and their loved ones, this is our commitment to the residents of the north and this is a clear message to all those who seek our help. Israel is alive."
Veteran Arab affairs journalist Ehud Ya’ari claimed that Hezbollah’s casualty toll in the mass attack this week was much higher than reported. Speaking on Channel 12 News, Ya’ari said that many of Hezbollah’s commanders are out of action due to injuries sustained in the recent explosions. Reports from Lebanon indicate that many of the wounded suffered eye and hand injuries.
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on 19 September 2024 deliberately created a state of ambiguity and kept the enemy captive to his fears and assessments regarding what the party might do in response to the week's massacres, in terms of timing and method, stressing that “the news is what you will see, not what you will hear,” in a position that confirms that the response will be achieved at the appropriate time. Nasrallah, who acknowledged that the enemy had carried out a qualitative strike, thwarted the objectives of this strike by first emphasizing that “the war to support Gaza will continue, regardless of the sacrifices,” and secondly, challenging the Israelis to return the residents of the northern settlements before a ceasefire in Gaza. As for the threats and military build-ups, he stressed that they are “an opportunity that the resistance fighters hope to turn the border strip into a swamp and hell” for the occupiers. Nasrallah described the “massacres of Tuesday and Wednesday” last week as “a war crime, a crime of genocide, a major aggression against Lebanon, its people, its sovereignty, its security, and a declaration of war,” and that “the enemy crossed all controls, laws, and red lines in this aggression,” stressing that “this big and powerful blow did not bring us down and will not bring us down.”
“This is the most impressive kinetic operation I can remember in my career,” says former CIA officer Mark Polymeropoulos. “The scope of it was astonishing.” Polymeropoulos added “It may not have been a big technological breakthrough, but it was a logistical and creative feat”. A former Israeli intelligence official told the Washington Post that the explosions were “the culmination of a multi-year investment in penetrating Hezbollah’s communications, logistics and procurement structures.”
Hezbollah operatives described the pager attack as a stunning security failure. “How could Hezbollah not have verified this shipment when it arrived? They have the technical capability, they have built drones and missiles. How could they not have detected this infiltration?” asked one Lebanese person close to the group.
But key details of the operation remain unclear, including whether Israel intercepted and tampered with a shipment of pagers, or whether it carried out a plot in which Israeli intelligence agencies manufactured or assembled explosive-laden devices. The New York Times reported that Israeli intelligence agencies manufactured the devices and set up front companies to deceive Hezbollah.
Israeli Channel 13 said that Nasrallah was planning a major attack against Israel in response to the explosions of communications devices in Lebanon, revealing that his estimates and those close to him say that "Israel may be planning to seize the opportunity and launch a surprise attack against Hezbollah in the coming hours or days."
Regarding the battles in the Gaza Strip, former spokesman for the occupation army Ronen Manelis said that Israel must be very modest after the killing of 4 soldiers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, adding, "In order to defeat the Rafah Brigade, we had to occupy all the areas of the Qassam Brigades - the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ) - and operate extensively there." Manelis explained to Channel 12 Israel, "The army is operating in two narrow axes, Netzarim and Philadelphi, and is carrying out limited operations in the rest of the areas, as well as bombing and reconnaissance operations," concluding that "we cannot talk about a decisive victory when the forces are operating in this manner."
Diplomats from the United States, the United Kingdom and other European countries met in Paris in an attempt to defuse tensions, with French President Emmanuel Macron making phone calls to Netanyahu and leaders in Lebanon urging restraint and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning against "escalatory actions in the Middle East".
Maariv political commentator Ran Adlist wrote "Today we have an idiot who sees himself as an expert on the United States, while he failed during his years in office to use every American lever to reach an agreement, and his only arm in the United States is the evangelicals, friends of the settlers, and he is gambling with the fate of Israel and the lives of soldiers and civilians by betting on former US President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump entering the White House again."
Al Jazeera's Ramallah bureau chief Walid Al-Omari said that Israel believes that through its successive operations in recent days against the Lebanese Hezbollah , it has sent a clear message: changing the rules, and that it no longer has any red lines. Israel believes that through the strikes it has directed at Hezbollah over the past few days, it has succeeded in achieving “tremendous accomplishments” and in changing the rules of engagement. The message it is sending is that it no longer has red lines to continue its war, and that Hezbollah must choose: either to stop the war of attrition once and for all and separate its equation from the Gaza Strip, or to accept what Israel calls the American approach to a political settlement in Lebanon. The Israelis believe that they succeeded in eliminating the military leadership of Hezbollah, represented by the leadership of the “Radwan Force,” and that they “thwarted a plan that they were studying and intending to implement to begin launching ground invasion operations in the Galilee region, similar to what the Palestinian resistance did in the Gaza Strip on October 7th .”
The Tasnim News Agency, which is close to the Iranian Quds Force, raised two scenarios: The first is that “the Zionist entity seeks, through these attacks, to cause cognitive confusion among the resistance in its ability to make decisions (through a comprehensive urban terrorist attack), in addition to pushing Hezbollah’s central cadre to back down from continuing the war. The entity’s goal is to cut off communication between the southern Lebanon front and the Gaza front, so that Hezbollah will abandon its support for Hamas. The entity prefers this scenario because, without paying the costs of war, it achieves its goal of stopping Hezbollah’s war machine, and according to Benjamin Netanyahu: returning the residents of northern Israel to their homes in peace.”
"In the second scenario, “the entity reached the conclusion that it is impossible to separate Hezbollah from the support front, and therefore war is no longer avoidable. To this end, it targeted, as in the 33-day war, the resistance’s communications network in particular, thus cutting off communication between Beirut and the southern front.”
Hezbollah escalated its missile attacks on northern Israel and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights by firing dozens of rockets, some of which targeted the Ramat David air base, while the Israeli army confirmed that it intercepted most of Hezbollah's rockets amid Israeli readiness for a wider war. Hezbollah said that its fighters had struck the Israeli military industrial complex Rafael, north of the city of Haifa, in retaliation for this week's explosions of electronic devices that the Lebanese movement blamed on Israel.
Israel's military said it had been "striking extensively" in southern Lebanon after detecting plans by Hezbollah to strike Israeli communities. Earlier in the day, its air force struck thousands of rocket launchers in southern Lebanon that posed an "immediate" threat amid growing fears of all-out war with Lebanese group Hezbollah. Cross-border exchanges again intensified with Hezbollah firing some 90 rockets towards Israel.
The chief of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Herzi Halevi, vowed to "hit" anyone threatening Israelis. Halevi said the current operation targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon, was a "message" to Israel's enemies in the region and elsewhere. "This operation against Hezbollah's chain of command is a clear message to Hezbollah, but it is also a message to the Middle East and beyond: We will hit anyone who threatens the citizens of the state of Israel," Halevi said in a video statement. Halevi said that hundreds of targets had been hit in Lebanon in recent days and claimed that Hezbollah was putting rocket launchers near Lebanese civilians and placing them at risk.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said 23 September 2024 the Israeli Air Force had struck some 1,300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon today, and was continuing to strike. In a press conference, Hagari says the targets were largely weapons stored in homes, including "cruise missiles that can reach hundreds of kilometers, heavy rockets with a 1,000-kilogram warhead, medium-range rockets that reach a range of up to 200 km, short-range rockets, and armed unmanned aerial vehicles."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a direct appeal to the citizens of Lebanon: "I have a message for the people of Lebanon: Israel's war is not with you. It's with Hezbollah. For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields. It placed rockets in your living rooms and missiles in your garage. Those rockets and missiles are aimed directly at our cities. To defend our people against Hezbollah strikes. Starting this morning, the IDF has warned you to get out of harm's way. I urge you - don't let Hezbollah endanger your lives. Please, get out of harm's way now finished, you can come back safely to your homes".
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