September 14, 2024
Nasser Kandil
On the dawn of August 25, and 30 minutes following the air raids by 200 of the occupation’s military planes on Al Mukawama targets in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah launched 340 missiles on settlements and the occupation’s military positions in the north of occupied Palestine at a depth exceeding the 20 kms, and tens of drones heading deep into the entity and its capital Tel Aviv, targeting the northern suburb of the entity’s capital and a strategic security facility, the entity’s brain and the heart of its security, Unit 8200. It appeared that 6 of the drones reached and hit hard their targets, inflicting serious human and material losses, and were followed later by detailed information confirming 22 killed and 74 wounded as a result of this operation. The details needed by those outside the entity and it establishments to know what actually occurred were already known to the entity’s leaders and its political, military, and security establishments at 6 am that day when the drones hit the buildings of Unit 8200 and exploded. Between 6 am and
12:00 pm, several scenarios were placed on the table for decisions, with the decision on any of them constituting a strategic benchmark in the entity’s history and its wars with Al Mukawama.
The land forces of the occupation’s military were in a state of full alert and readiness in anticipation of the repercussions from Hezbollah’s response, since the assassination of Al Mukawama’s Commander Fuad Shukr by an air raid on Beirut’s southern suburb. The air force, and the naval force were likewise on full alert. The air jets had just returned after executing the air raids which the entity’s Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, described as a preemptive strike to destroy strategic missiles he claimed were directed at Tel Aviv by the thousands. This meant that all the logistical, psychological, and political conditions to take the decision of launching a war on Hezbollah, and by extension on Lebanon, were ripe, with the draft for such decision being one of the scenarios placed on the table.
Naturally, the consultation included all concerned political, military, and security personages, as well as Washington and Tel Aviv for a joint situation assessment. The positions of all the entity’s leaders, 6 hours after the strike on Unit 8200, had the same tune, eschewing war and escalation. If some had seen at that time that the matter was related to confidence in the entity’s leaders that Hezbollah’s strike failed, and that the preemptive strike had realized for the entity the desired deterrence of Hezbollah, the days which followed revealed that the strike was exceptionally successful, and that the preemptive strike preempted nothing except news in the media filled with outlandish exaggerations, such as the alleged types and number of missiles directed at Tel Aviv. The events of that day and days that followed said that Hezbollah did not behave as a deterred party, but continued operations energetically and forcefully on the full depth of the northern front, implying that the talk about not wanting war was derived from a calm and calculated situational assessment between Washington and Tel Aviv, and domestically between the entity’s political and military leaders, with the outcome being dismissal of the war option.
What is clear is that the severe headache, dizziness, and fear the entity’s leadership experienced after the head blow it received were behind the talk suggesting weakness and a wish to avoid more, and came as an offer for a tradeoff between their dismissal of the war option and the calling off of the second part of the response, after Hezbollah’s statement about having executed a preliminary response to the assassination of Commander Fuad Shukr. War Minister Yuav Galant, for months the icon of the call on war and author of the formula of bringing Lebanon back to the Stone Age and Hezbollah behind the Litani River, came after the strike relegating the war on Hezbollah to the distant future. A few days later, the entity’s leaders discovered the need not to empty their hands of the war talk, because of the intractable dilemma of the displaced settlers of the north, who had been promised return and the opening of schools at the beginning of September. So a hybrid speech void of the term war, bringing back to the Stone Age, and forcing Hezbollah behind the Litani, but terms of the sort of we will not adjust to the situation in the north, and we will change the situation on the front, and we will chase Hezbollah’s commanders and elements and continue operations to deter Hezbollah, and the like emerged. Then suddenly we witnessed the translation of the escalation intended to change the situation in the north as publicizing news about a Hollywood-like operation on the Syrian Masyaf, half real and half imaginary.
Prior to Al Mayadeen making public the information it solely possessed, and which was confirmed by Al Mukawama, and from a political perspective, it was evident that what was going on resulted from the fruits of Hezbollah’s strike, the details of which were unknown. After these details were revealed, everything was explained, regardless of how high the cries of war soar.
