September 26, 2024
By Nasser Kandil
• Yesterday morning, the resistance revealed that it had launched a Qader 1 ballistic missile aimed at the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. The occupying entity acknowledged the strike, claiming that it intercepted the missile using its David’s Sling defence system. Despite this, the missile’s launch, accompanied by the blaring of sirens in Greater Tel Aviv and Gush Dan, forced two million settlers to take refuge in shelters.
• It’s evident that launching a single missile makes interception easier than dealing with a barrage, something Hezbollah is fully capable of and – as the entities’ leaders know- may execute soon. The firing of this missile was likely a declaration of intent in that direction.
• The entities’ leaders know that even repeating the single launch every morning, forcing them to intercept it, would be a form of war by attrition. Two million settlers would repeatedly take cover or adjust their daily schedules, waiting out the ordeal of the missile, which could extend all day if the launch is scheduled for the evening. In this way, Hezbollah could add to the growing displacement, exhausting settlers by forcing them into shelters deep inside the entity without resorting to urban warfare or targeting civilians. The occupying entity has no comparable response to this strategy; it already tried breaching the sound barrier over Beirut, but life in Lebanon went on undisturbed.
• Effectively, Hezbollah is signalling that it has regained the initiative and is tightening the noose around the entity’s neck each day. Despite the losses, wounds, and pain it has endured, Hezbollah has turned the challenge of an escalated war – in terms of scope range – into an opportunity. Northern Tel Aviv is now on the verge of becoming a potential evacuation zone, with more people leaving each day, as images show increasing pressure of reverse migration at Ben Gurion Airport.
• Hezbollah is presenting the occupying entity and its leaders with two choices: escalate to a higher level of war, through urban warfare, whose devastating toll on the entity’s core they fully understand – despite the severe cost it would also impose on Lebanon – or engage in a ground invasion, which senior military officers in the occupying entity have warned would be far riskier than what they faced in Gaza. The entity’s army is weaker than when it entered the Gaza war, and Hezbollah is far stronger than Hamas was at the start of the conflict. Compared to the 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah is now much more formidable, while the occupying military has been weakened by its losses in Gaza.
• The entity stands at a decisive moment, with its knockout attempt to topple the resistance having failed. Will it now accept the resistance’s terms for an agreement in Gaza, before a similar missile reaches Tel Aviv and successfully strikes the Mossad?
