Aftermath of the Israeli - Hezbollah Strikes

We’ll keep this brief. The real bottom line is that this doesn’t appear to be the start of any wider regional war, nor the start of an Israeli operation into Lebanon.

First, we present Hezbollah’s statement, which I picked up from the Al Mayadeen feed:

Sayyed Nasrallah: Based on the result of the operations, if the outcome is deemed satisfactory and the intended goal is achieved, the response is considered concluded, while if the result is not sufficient, we will reserve the right to respond.

We are facing a false Israeli narrative and an intelligence failure.

The enemy [Israel] did not have any [advance] intel, and all its raids an hour before the operation were the result of the natural movement of the fighters on the ground

All the platforms that were intended to launch rockets were not hit before the operation, and only two platforms were hit after the operation.

The Israeli military's claim, which Netanyahu endorsed, that it destroyed thousands of missiles and missile launchers is false.

No rocket or drone launch pad was hit before the operation.

The Glilot base is 110 km from the Lebanese border and 1,500 meters from Tel Aviv's periphery

We targeted the Glilot base, which is a main base affiliated with the Aman military intelligence and to which Unit 8200 belongs."

[Unit 8200 is an Israeli Intelligence Corps unit of the Israel Defense Forces responsible for clandestine operation, collecting signal intelligence (SIGINT) and code decryption, counterintelligence, cyberwarfare, military intelligence, and surveillance. Military publications include references to Unit 8200 as the Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps, and it is sometimes referred to as Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU). It is subordinate to Aman, the military intelligence directorate.]

We waited [all this time] to make way for negotiations because our goal from this front and all the sacrifices is to stop the war on Gaza. Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to hold speech at 6 p.m Al-Quds time to discuss latest developments.

Hezbollah claims to have targeted the Glilot base and that its operation was “a success.” Israel states that there was “no damage” at the base. Al Jazeera specifies a claim of “no hits.” So, dueling claims, with no independent confirmation so far.

Now, compare that with this summary taken from a 13 minute video by Danny Davis: BREAKING: Israel Launches Massive Airstrike into Southern Lebanon.

First the timing, which is significant. The Israeli claim is that they picked up that an attack was coming and acted in “self defense.” Davis points out that in Muslim tradition a revenge action is taken within 40 days, and today was the 40th day since the Israeli assassination of a Hezbollah leader. So, this was not rocket science that today would be the day. And, of course, Hezbollah would have known that Israel knew this and would act to try to preempt. The point is that there was no surprise here on either side. As Davis says:

So it's not like Israel was just looking around and saw a bunch of launchers and sent something to strike into it.

That means that Israel had this strike planned out well in advance. That conclusion is further solidified by the fact that 100 planes were involved. That’s a very big operation, and it doesn’t happen, like, within some short time frame after intel is received. It has to have been planned out well in advance:

Israel claims that they launched over a 100 jet foray into Southern Lebanon. Now, I'll just tell you that I'm skeptical of that claim— that it was a target of opportunity. I've certainly been in combat operations. I know what it means when you have a target of opportunity and how you launch strikes against that. But when you launch a 100 jet strike, folks, that takes a lot—I mean a lot—of preparation. … Israel was prepared for it because they knew that the 40-day calendar was about to expire. It was a case where both sides knew something was coming and they ended up launching.

The next important takeaway is that, despite the major size of the Israeli strike, it was actually quite limited. Davis illustrates from a map that the entire strike was directed at a narrow 5km strip in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, for its part, mostly confined its strikes to 11 Israeli bases near the border. There’s a caveat that applies here—Nasrallah claims Hezbollah targeted a base on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. I haven’t seen any confirmation of damage there.

Israel claims to have destroyed thousands of missiles and launchers. This appears to be quite doubtful. Hezbollah knew the Israeli strike was coming, so they were hardly likely to place the launchers out in the open. Plus, regardless of any damage that was or was not caused by the Hezbollah attack, it appears to be true that hundreds of projectiles—mostly fairly primitive Katyusha type rocket artillery, which can be handled by the Israeli air defenses—were, in fact, launched.

Israel claimed that they destroyed a thousand rocket launchers. I'm skeptical of that, as well, because it's not likely that Hezbollah is going to actually expose that many at one time and that Israel would have such precise targeting location that they could take them out in a single swoop.

The last and biggest takeaway is that there was no sign of Iranian involvement and that both sides claim they don’t want a bigger war:

There was some concern that this attack by Hezbollah was going to be in coordination with something from Iran. That doesn't appear to have happened

It's interesting that both Israel and Hezbollah have said that this concludes today's broadcasting, so to speak. Both sides keep saying they don't want this to escalate into a war—which is very interesting, because the scale of these attacks keeps going up.

So that’s where things stand.