Iran-Backed Hezbollah Intensifies Terror Strikes on Israel, Drags Lebanon Into Conflict
Time for ‘diplomatic solution running out’ for Lebanon, Israel’s War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz warns.
As the Israeli military in Gaza tightens the noose around Hamas leaders who planned and executed the October 7 massacre, Iran-backed Hezbollah and other terrorist groups are stepping up cross-borders attacks into northern Israel.
The Israeli military on Thursday launched retaliatory strikes, hitting Hezbollah’s rocket launchers and terrorist sites in southern Lebanon. “The IDF says it is responding to barrages of rockets on northern Israel from Lebanon by striking the sources of the fire,” The Times of Israel reported Thursday afternoon. “The IDF also confirms it carried out strikes against a number of areas in Lebanon overnight and this morning, without elaborating further.”
Recent Israeli airstrikes reportedly eliminated several terror operatives in Syria and Lebanon, including Razi Mousavi, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Guard (IRGC) terror group, who was directing Iranian terrorist activities in Syria and Lebanon.
Hezbollah published video of two guided missiles strikes on St. Mary's Greek Orthodox church in Iqrit, northern Israel. The attack that happened yesterday injured a civilian, including several IDF soldiers who came to give first aid to the injured person. pic.twitter.com/w6HFJ02FdW
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) December 27, 2023
Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border has been joined by other pro-Iranian militias. On Wednesday, an Iran-backed terrorist militia reportedly carried out an aerial surveillance into Israel from its base in Syria.
“An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) reportedly crashed in the Golan Heights with no casualties, [Israeli broadcaster] Kan reported overnight. While the drone was initially believed to have been launched from Syria, Iran-linked militia in Iraq claimed responsibility over the incident,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported Thursday. “This is the first instance of such an incident occurring in the area since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, but not the first time Iran-backed militia have escalated the situation in the region during the conflict.”
Hezbollah claims foreign fighter from Australia slain in Israeli strike
Since Monday, the IDF carried out further strikes against Hezbollah targets, killing several terrorists — including one holding Australian citizenship, the Israeli media reported.
“Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said one of two Australian brothers killed in the strike on Wednesday, Ali Bazzi, was one of its fighters,” Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported Thursday.
The incident suggests that Hezbollah is apparently attracting foreign fighters in its ongoing jihad warfare against Israel. Mass migration from the Middle East and Muslim-majority countries has led to an increase in the number of terror supporters and operatives in the West. Germany alone is home to around 450 Hamas and 1,250 Hezbollah terror operatives, the German intelligence agency (BfV) estimated in July 2023,
How many other Hezbollah fighters and their supporters live in Australia? This is a proscribed terrorist organisation that is backed by Iran and which threatens Western civilisation. At least these two won’t be returning to cause harm in Australia.https://t.co/flHETP6IAn
— Jeremy Lanzer (@jeremylanzer) December 27, 2023
Time for ‘diplomatic solution running out’ for Lebanon: Israeli minister warns
Benny Gantz, former IDF chief and senior member of the Israeli war-time cabinet, warned that Lebanon — under the influence of Iran and Hezbollah — was dragging itself into a war with Israel.
The British newspaper Telegraph reported the minister’s warning:
War cabinet minister Benny Gantz said that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would soon intervene if Lebanese authorities did not act to stop the Iran-backed group from firing across the frontier.
“The situation on Israel’s northern border demands change,” Mr Gantz told a press conference on Wednesday night.
“The stopwatch for a diplomatic solution is running out, if the world and the Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents, and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the IDF will do it.”
Cross-border exchanges have steadily intensified since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the IDF has been training reservists and regular troops for possible military operations against Hezbollah in the north of the country. “As rockets from Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces streamed in from Lebanon, Israeli officials said they were prepared to take the war to a second front,” The New York Times noted Thursday.
IDF uncovers more Hamas terror tunnels, underground war room
Meanwhile, the IDF is engaged in a fierce battle to capture Hamas strongholds across Gaza, particularly the terrorist bastion of Khan Yunis in the south. Top Hamas terrorists and architects of the October 7 massacre, such as Hamas’ chief Yahya Sinwar and terror group’s ‘military’ chief Mohammed Deif, are believed to be hiding there.
Israeli soldiers on Thursday found more underground tunnels and a Hamas war room in the area, the Jerusalem Post reported:
The IDF’s 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade uncovered on Thursday an underground route that was connected to a war room belonging to Nukhba commandos of the Hamas terror organization in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
The soldiers in the brigade had “eliminated terrorists and located several tunnel shafts and terrorist infrastructure that were subsequently destroyed by combat engineering soldiers,” the IDF said, and “located a tunnel shaft and a rocket launcher inside a mosque, which was next to a school.”
Israeli forces found inside the mosque a staging area that included observation and combat posts that endangered the soldiers.
The tunnel and the war room were used by Nukhba operatives as a place of combat and transfer of weapons. Israel forces had since dismantled the tunnel route and the war room.
🔴WATCH as IDF troops uncover a terrorist tunnel shaft hidden inside a mosque in Gaza.
This is a direct threat to both Israeli and Gazan civilians: pic.twitter.com/lQm1huQWbB
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 28, 2023
The Israeli military continued to clear Gaza of Hamas terrorists in house-to-house combat. The IDF on Thursday disclosed the details of the ongoing Gaza operation:
IDF ground troops operated in the heart of Daraj Tuffah [northern Gaza], guiding an IAF fighter jet to strike an anti-tank missile terrorist cell
After RPG missiles were fired from inside a building toward an IDF vehicle, IDF ground troops destroyed terrorist infrastructure located inside the building. Additionally, an anti-tank missile launch site where terrorist operatives were located was struck by the IAF with the direction of IDF ground forces,
Over the last two days, IDF troops conducted operational activity in the Daraj Tuffah area and eliminated terrorists in both ground and aerial strikes.
In a separate incident, terrorists fired at IDF troops from a building during operational activity. Following searches of the residence from which the shots were fired, the troops located dozens of weapons.
IDF naval forces are also continuing to provide fire support to troops operating on the ground in the Gaza Strip.
I walked into the chamber of hell, Hamas' largest terrorist attack tunnel. The $$ they stole and sunk into here, could have built the largest university campus in the world for the children of Gaza. Instead Hamas gave them a life of terror and destruction. What a "noble"… pic.twitter.com/49HL2ZvX4E
— Doron Spielman (@DoronSpielman) December 28, 2023
Israeli security forces bust terror-financing ring in West Bank
Israeli security services conducted a large-scale raid at several locations in the West Bank, busting a major Palestinian terror-financing network. The i24NEWS reported:
Israeli security forces on Thursday reported conducting an extensive operation across the West Bank. Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Cyber Unit, Shin Bet and Israeli Police cooperated on locating and confiscating “millions of shekels” (1 shekel = 0.28 U.S. dollars).
21 people are said to have been arrested during the raid, according to the Israeli security forces’ joint statement.
Additionally, Israeli Air Forces stroke at a terrorist cell responding to an attack against the IDF troops on the ground during the raid in Jenin.
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Now is the hour when we see which morally upright people and nations stand firmly against Muslim supremacists, terrorists and Islamofascists, and, which parties hide behind their emasculated, meek, obsequious and self-destructive dhimmitude and appeasement.
We wont know til it happens, I’m purely speculating: I think the beginning of the end times is triggered when the Moslems come for Israel and no other countries, especially the US, stand with her.
I’d submit that it’s happening, right now. Just look at Biden’s, Macron’s and Sunak’s utterly shameful equivocations and tepid support for Israel — behavior that is transparently intended to placate the bullying and restive Muslim supremacists and Islamofascists who are among their constituents.
I live 4 air miles from Picatinny
When Xiden foments WWII it will be quick
WWIII
He won’t know the difference between II and III.
The West should be taking care of known terrorists by prosecuting, expelling or outright killing them. Are governments going to wait and allow this?
Expansion of the war to the North is very predictable, and probably inevitable. Iran needs an all-out war to remove Israel, and to do it when Biden’s clowns are still in power. They can’t wait for a possible Trump return because they know Trump would obliterate them. Israel needs a final solution to the Palestinians, and this means expulsion of all in West Bank and Gaza. The only realistic place to send them is Lebanon-Syria, and that means defeating Hezbollah and Iran first.
Hezbollah is making a serious error. The IDF has its hands full in Gaza and can easily shift dumb bomb strikes and artillery to Hezbollah targets but precision munitions, unfortunately in short supply, must be reserved for higher priority targets. If that means considerably wider areas of damage and death occurring in Lebanon as a result ..well that’s how the cookie crumbles. The IDF is under no obligation to use smart munitions and precise strike packages; so long as they are targeting the launch points and other valid targets dumb munitions are justified.
This was expected as Irans flying monkeys to the north were waiting to gauge the Hamas/Gaza battle. Hezbollah has a huge arsenal of rockets. The tepid backing by the FJBiden admin and the position as stated by LLoyd Austin … Sec of Da Fence only encourages more conflitct. Time for Papa Joe to send another pallet of money to Iran (10% back…right?)
I hope it was always the plan to clean out Lebanon after Hamas is done and then take the fight to Iran directly.
Germany alone is home to around 450 Hamas and 1,250 Hezbollah terror operatives, the German intelligence agency (BfV) estimated in July 2023
Now, see, in MY world, they would have been hunted and eliminated with extreme prejudice. And without fanfare. Just one morning they aren’t there anymore.
In MY world there would be a bounty on their heads. All of them.