Israel Targets Presumed new Hezbollah Leader in Beirut Strikes as Iran’s Leader Issues Warnings in Rare Speech

Following Iran’s Tuesday night missile attack on Israel, which saw about 180 ballistic missiles hit the country, Israel has vowed to respond with US President Joe Biden telling journalists on Thursday that the response wouldn’t be “today” while reports suggest it could be imminent.

Iran responded to Israel’s threat by warning that any response would see it carry out an “unconventional attack because its patience with continued Israeli attacks had grown thin”.

On Friday afternoon, Israel ordered UNIFIL peacekeepers to evacuate some of their positions on Israel’s border, which they refused. And, in an act of defiance, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi landed in Beirut for talks with the Lebanese Government despite Israeli threats against aircraft flying from Iran.

The same day, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed Iranians in a rare speech saying every country had the right to defend itself from aggressors and described Iran’s missile attack on Israel as a “legitimate” act.

Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack on Israel was the “minimum punishment” Israel deserved, he said, for “astonishing crimes”. Israel’s primary ally, the US, was branded a “rabid dog”.

Khamenei added that resistance to Israel’s occupation would not die down during his Friday sermon.

On Wednesday night, Israel said it had killed Hashim Safi al-Din the head of Hezbollah’s executive committee and a possible successor to former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who was recently assassinated by the Israelis – in a bombing attack. Tel Aviv also said it had eliminated Mahmoud Yusef Anisi who it said was involved in Hezbollah’s weapons manufacturing chain.

Tehran’s ballistic missile attack on Tuesday night was its promised response to Israel’s assassinations of Nasrallah, as well as several other top leaders of the organisation in Beirut and southern Lebanon over the last few weeks, and the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital at the end of July.

Israel has reportedly carried out dozens of attacks against Iranian targets and interests over the years, assassinating military leaders and nuclear specialists, and killing members of Iranian proxy groups in Syria and elsewhere.

Unlike Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel in April when it also launched a barrage of missiles – in response to Israel’s attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus which killed a number of senior Iranian military advisors – the US has approved Israel’s current plan for its next response.

In April, the US administration said it preferred no escalation but ultimately accepted Israel’s limited response. This time not only has Biden greenlighted a strong Israeli response, arguing that Israel has the right to defend itself, but he refused to comment on whether Israel’s possible planned targeting of Iranian oil facilities was acceptable. Israel said no targets were off limits, including Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has long wanted to attack Iran and specifically its nuclear facilities, arguing that the Islamic state was heading towards a nuclear bomb.

However, experts warned that it would be almost impossible to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities because they were spread over the country and although any bunker busting bombs would cause damage they would only temporarily halt Iran’s nuclear programme while provoking the country’s leadership to accelerate its development.

And as the Middle East hurtles ever closer to an all-out regional war Israel has continued its bloody bombing campaign over Lebanon. Since Israel began its ground military incursions into Southern Lebanon on Tuesday, it has continued to blanket bomb the area, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut, while Hezbollah has continued to launch barrages of rockets into Israel.

Israel has warned the residents of dozens of villages in the south to evacuate but the mountainous terrain and a single winding road leading to the north was bombed by Israeli aircraft making it difficult to leave.

There are also reports that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is continuing to deploy white phosphorous in its intensive bombing campaign of southern villages which intensified two weeks ago.

The use of white phosphorus munitions is not banned as a chemical weapon and can be used in war to make smoke screens, mark targets or burn buildings – but since they can cause serious burns and start fires, international conventions prohibit their use against military targets located among civilians.

The bombing campaign has also extended beyond Beirut’s suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, and moved to areas of the capital closer to diplomatic missions. The Lebanese Health Ministry reports 37 killed and 151 wounded in bombing attacks across the country in the past 24 hours.

This has caused intense fear among the hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese and Syrian refugees who fled the south to find refuge in the capital. The highway from Lebanon to Syria has also been targeted by the Israelis, making escape harder for those trying to join the over 100,000 who have already fled to Syria.

Israel’s aerial attacks have also indiscriminately targeted medics and other health workers, including ambulances and clinics affiliated with Hezbollah.

However, Israeli plans for a lightning and limited attack on Lebanon, following its pager and walkie attacks on Hezbollah personnel and civilians, and its successful elimination of many of Hezbollah’s rank and file leadership – could well be premature.

The Jewish state’s aerial superiority has not translated into an easy victory in face-to-face ground fighting where battle-hardened members of Hezbollah’s elite Redwan units know the terrain, and has forced Israeli troops to retreat and regroup on a number of occasions.

In the last few days Israeli ground forces have battled to move further into Lebanon in force and have been repeatedly attacked by Hezbollah fighters in a number of skirmishes, leading to the deaths of at least nine Israeli special forces soldiers and the wounding of many more.

Israeli military helicopters have been filmed repeatedly landing and taking off with wounded soldiers, despite the Israeli military initially placing several gag orders on the events.

The high number of Israeli soldiers killed in such a short time has dampened the euphoria of the Israeli public, but the Lebanon quagmire should come as no surprise.

Hezbollah’s repeated guerrilla hit-and-run tactics forced Israel to withdraw from its self-declared security zone, in the south along Lebanon’s border with Israel, in 2000 after Israel invaded the country in 1982.

The original goal of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon was to degrade Hezbollah militarily so that Israelis displaced from their homes in northern Lebanon because of Hezbollah rockets could return home.

Now Netanyahu has vowed the war on Lebanon won’t stop until Hezbollah has been forced to move about 29km north of the border with Israel to the Litani River as outlined in UN resolution 1701, and until Hezbollah has been completely destroyed.

But this is ultimately not about the impossibility of Israel destroying Hezbollah, which like Hamas is also a socio-political organisation that can’t be destroyed militarily, but about Netanyahu’s political survival.

His political status has moved from beyond widespread public contempt over Gaza, being possibly overthrown in early Israeli elections and facing court on several corruption charges, to growing public support and legal charges now on the backburner.

Meanwhile, as the eyes of the world focus on Lebanon and now to a lesser extent Gaza, Israel’s bloody military campaign in the West Bank has intensified.

At least 18 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli fighter jet attacked an Internet cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank overnight Thursday.

Israel said it had killed a Hamas leader from the area. However, innocent civilians were also among the dead, including children.

This is the first time in several decades that a fighter jet was employed in the West Bank, although Israel has repeatedly used armed drones and military helicopters armed with missiles to target Palestinian resistance fighters in the last year.