My Word: The war within the war - opinion

After the IDF preemptively hit Hezbollah rocket launchers early on Sunday morning, a meme in Hebrew started doing the rounds on social media calling it “The Three-Hour War,” the length of time Ben-Gurion International Airport was closed.

This, of course, was nothing like the incredible victory of the Six Day War. Residents of the North were understandably upset that people in Tel Aviv and the center of the country treated the event as if it were the end of hostilities.

Until October 7, the IDF and top political and security echelon frequently used the term “Mabam.” It’s a military acronym for the “Campaign between Wars,” the use of often covert activity aimed at halting the spread of Iranian arms and influence, mainly in Syria and Lebanon. Given the buildup of Hezbollah rockets and precise missiles in Lebanon, funded and supplied by Iran, it is now clearer than ever that the policy was not a strategic success. Perhaps Sunday’s strike should be called “The war within a war.”

I sympathize with the northerners – those who remain in homes under rocket fire and the 80,000 or so who remain displaced nearly a year after the Swords of Iron operation that followed the Hamas and Islamic Jihad mega-atrocity. 

Hezbollah has fired more than 6,600 missiles since it joined Hamas in the war, on October 8, the day after the Gazans killed 1,200 and abducted some 250, of whom 108 are still captives, dead or alive. (This week, the IDF rescued Israeli Bedouin Qaid Farhan Alkadi from captivity in a terror tunnel.)

Homes have been damaged, businesses have collapsed, and vast areas have been burned by rocket shrapnel. While most residents of the South have been able to return to their communities, much of the North remains abandoned. It’s an unprecedented blow to sovereignty, even if Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah did not lead a physical invasion like his terrorist twin in Gaza.

There is a feeling among those whose lives and livelihoods have been disrupted – if not destroyed – that the decision-makers care only about the center of the country, the commercial center. IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari stressed that in Sunday’s campaign, 100 IAF fighter jets had knocked out thousands of rocket launchers, preempting a massive attack on the Golan and Galilee. But it was the reports that the Hezbollah rockets had been on their way to Tel Aviv that caught the attention of the vast majority of the population.

It was noted that the ongoing rocket and drone attacks in the North – sometimes hundreds a day – have not been met by a heavy military response, whereas when one drone launched by the Houthis in Yemen killed a man in Tel Aviv last month, Israel responded swiftly with an impressive Air Force operation on the southern Yemen port of Hodeidah.

Later on Sunday, it became apparent from foreign news reports that Hezbollah’s intended targets had included the area of Glilot, where Mossad headquarters and Military Intelligence Unit 8200 are located. This might have mitigated some of the resentment felt in the North – the response was not just to a threat to Tel Aviv’s coffee shops, hi-tech, and laid-back lifestyle as originally perceived.

Nonetheless, in the evening when a single rocket was launched from Gaza on Rishon Lezion, part of the metropolitan area just south of Tel Aviv, Israeli television broadcast a special breaking news bulletin. One rocket on the commercial city seems worth more news-wise than the hundreds that the North is forced to endure on an ongoing basis.

To begin with, Hezbollah boasted that their rockets were “deep in Zionist territory and heading toward a specific Israeli military target that will be announced later.” By the evening, however, when Nasrallah gave a televised speech, his bragging was met with derision even within the Arab world. 

An Israeli sailor was killed during the attack when an Iron Dome interceptor (or debris from it) hit his patrol boat. However, the main direct damage from the Hezbollah rockets was sustained by a chicken coop in western Galilee.

It was more “fowl play” than the “coop de force” Hezbollah had threatened since its chief of staff Fuad Shukr was eliminated by Israel in Beirut last month. Shukr was killed a few hours before Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was eliminated in Tehran, in another incredible operation also attributed to Israel.

As The Jerusalem Post’s Ohad Merlin noted, a Kuwaiti user named Fahed uploaded a picture of a dead chicken, adding cynically: “Allahu Akbar! Hassan Nasrallah’s response! Hezbollah’s response! The number of chicken injuries rose to 27 chickens, 5 of them are critically injured, with first-degree burns to the wings and beak, after the chicken pen was targeted in response to the assassination of Fuad Shukr. He says ‘Our missiles are accurate!’”

In one popular image shared on X, Nasrallah was seen dressed as a Kentucky Fried Chicken-type cowboy riding a rooster, with the logo reading HFC (Hezbollah Fried Chicken). The chances for peace grow along with the ridicule.

'Chekohv's gun' on steroids

ALTHOUGH NASRALLAH appeared to try to put the incident behind him, claiming the terrorist army’s operation had ended for now, there is no room for complacency. It is essential to remember the way Israel dismissed Hamas’s threats and proclaimed them to be deterred prior to the shattering atrocity of October 7.

Quoting the World Factbook of the US Central Intelligence Agency, a Reuters report this week noted that: “The Iran-backed group possesses upward of 150,000 missiles and rockets... Many are unguided, but it also has precision missiles, drones, and anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and anti-ship missiles.”

This is “Chekhov’s gun” on steroids. No terrorist organization accidentally stockpiles 150,000 missiles. If they are present in the first act, you can be sure Hezbollah intends to use many of them before the curtain comes down.

A casual look at the CIA World Factbook also reveals the dire economic situation in Lebanon, with triple-digit inflation of 221.34% (2023 est.). Hezbollah’s growth has literally come at the expense of the Lebanese people.

Similarly, while the narrative of the “poor Palestinians” in Gaza dominates international discourse, it should be noted that the 500 km. of terror tunnels cost a lot to construct and maintain, and the thousands of rockets and other weapons also came at a price.

Instead of building up the Gaza Strip after Israel fully withdrew in 2005, Hamas preferred to try to bring Israel down, and generous donors footed the bill. Some, like Iran and Qatar, funded the terrorists on purpose. Others – including Western donor states and the backers of UNRWA – believe that they are doing the right thing, even when confronted with evidence of where their support has been directed.

Incidentally, the rocket on Rishon Lezion was launched from next to a school in Gaza, part of the Hamas strategy to maximize international censure of Israel when it knocks out the launchers.

The UN, as usual, seemed more scared of ruffling feathers than censuring the terrorists this week. The statement issued by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was more predictable than Nasrallah’s attack. Guterres said he is “deeply concerned by the significant increase in the exchanges of fire across the Blue Line.  These actions put both the Lebanese and Israeli populations at risk, as well as threatening regional security and stability.”

The secretary-general called “for immediate de-escalation and on the parties to urgently and immediately return to a cessation of hostilities and fully implement Resolution 1701 (2006).”

The statement was disarming – but not so the UN’s actions. Resolution 1701, reached at the end of the Second Lebanon War, calls for the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River (i.e., close to the border with Israel) to be “an area free of any armed personnel, assets, and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon.”

It would carry more weight had UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) prevented Hezbollah (courtesy of Iran) from building up its weapons, constructing terror tunnels, and threatening Israel right under the noses on their blue-helmeted heads.

In the effort to create a deterrent against Hezbollah, Israel’s actions this week spoke louder than Guterres’s words.

Meanwhile, reports from Gaza say that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar occasionally emerges from his hiding places in the terror tunnels disguised as a woman. London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported that Sinwar is insisting that his life be spared as part of a ceasefire deal. In other words, he is willing to send others to their deaths but is not ready to become a shahid himself. Talk about a chicken.