November 14, 2024
By Nasser Kandil
• The scheduled day for the occupying army’s launch of the second phase of its ground operation, anticipated to involve an assault by thousands of soldiers, turned into yet another day of war without this phase beginning. Yet, the second phase had indeed started – for the resistance.
• The resistance announced it had devised a plan, naming it the ‘Second Phase of the Confrontation’, contingent on the occupying army’s declaration of its second ground phase. Upon hearing this announcement, the resistance initiated its own plan. However, the occupation’s second phase never materialised; what began was the resistance’s escalation.
• Dubbed the ‘Tel Aviv Surprise’, the resistance unleashed new rockets and drones on the city. No sooner had one wave of rockets subsided than a fleet of drones would follow, then another barrage of rockets – targeting fortified, high-value sites. Notably, the war-time secret headquarters for the Ministry of War and the Chief of Staff became primary targets.
• Tel Aviv has now joined the list of daily targets, following the routine bombardment of Haifa. Just as air defences failed to protect Haifa, they also proved incapable of detecting the rockets and drones reaching Tel Aviv. Alarms faltered, as radars, set up extensively for Tel Aviv’s defence, did not even register the incoming strikes.
• The resistance has thus far limited its strikes to military targets, but the occupying forces’ continued attacks on civilian areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the South, and the Bekaa may hasten the shift toward targeting residential areas in major cities of the occupying entity. When that day arrives, settlers must realise they have squandered their opportunities to evacuate and pressure their government to halt its massacres against women and children to avoid facing the same horrors endured by Lebanese and Gazan civilians.