Today’s Image
I took the liberty of extracting this photo from the official web site of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khomeini together with his best buddies - Hassan Nasrallah and Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani was the commander of the IRGC Quds Brigade and responsible for training, organizing all the Iranian proxies throughout the Middle East. He was assassinated in January, 2020 under order of President Donald Trump. The man in the middle was Supreme Chief of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated today by the IDF. On the left is Khomeini, who has gone into a safe bunker somewhere in Iran for fear that Israel will assassinate him.
Casualties
There were no casualties reported by the IDF in the last 4 days.
Rockets & Missiles & Drones
No rockets launched from Gaza crossed into Israeli air space in the past 9 days.
Around 90 rockets were fired in several barrages today by Hezbollah. Some were long range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv and some of the towns in northern Samaria (West Bank). Shrapnel from one of the interceptions landed on the home of an Arab family in northern Samaria. One rocket directly hit a home in Tzfat (Safed) lightly injuring a woman and damaging her home. The long range rockets were either neutralized or fell in open fields. No injuries or damage was reported.
This morning Hezbollah fired a surface to surface missile that landed in neither as it seems to have crashed into the sea.
Lebanon Operations
It was a very, very busy 24 hours for the Israeli Air Force. I am in Jerusalem. We could hear jets flying overhead much of the day today, busy on missions in Lebanon and Syria.
The big news, of course, was the successful assassination of Hezbollah’s Supreme Leader Hassan Nasrallah. He and what remained of his top command structure, including several recent promotions, were meeting deep underground a residential building in the Dahiyeh neighborhood in southern Beirut. To reach his operations center deep underground the IAF has to use a “bunker busting” bomb. There was no other way to reach Nasrallah as he lived nearly all his life below ground in fear of an assassination like this. Along with Nasrallah several other top leaders in Hezbollah were killed as well. Only some have been publicly identified. One was Ali Karaki, who was just recently promoted after the operation earlier in the week that assassinated Ibrahim Aqil. Karaki was in charge of Hezbollah’s southern front. You will find directly below an updated organization chart for Hezbollah. Here you can hear, in English, the description of the operation by the IDF Spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. Apparently, the IDF has been tracking Nasrallah’s movements for several months in advance of this operation.
Also, it appears that an IRGC Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp general, Brigadier Genera Abbas Nilforushan, was also killed in the strike on Nasrallah. There were other high ranking IRGC commanders killed in the attack according to this report. Among others it includes the Acting Commander of Quds Force Operations in Syria and Lebanon. Prior to the attack, and others conducted in the early hours on Saturday, the IDF issued broadcast SMS messages through cell phone towers in Beirut to residents warning them to immediately evacuate specific blocks in the Dehiyeh neighborhood as they were about to be attacked from the air..
In a separate operation conducted this afternoon, an IAF fighter jet assassinated the top commander of Hezbollah’s intelligence division, Hassan Khalil Yassin, by a missile attack on a building where he and his staff were meeting in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh. The IDF attributes Yassin with directing much of the targeting of military and civilian facilities within Israel by the many missiles, rockets and drones launched by Hezbollah. Prior to this launch and the launch killing Nasrallah, the IDF issued broadcasts over Lebanese Cell phones using a Lebanese phone number to residents in Dahiyeh, the Beqaa Valley and Southern Lebanon to leave their homes if there are Hezbollah armaments stored.
And in a third independent operation, Lebanese media is reporting that the IDF conducted an assassination of Nabil Qaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s executive council. Here is his mug shot.
As of today, the IDF has announced a full military blockade on Lebanon. There are fears that Iran will rush IRGC terrorists and munitions to Lebanon, in the aftermath of this attack. Consistent with this announcement, Lebanese security sources are reporting that the IDF struck a warehouse near the Beirut airport. As you might recall, I reported in June 2024, that the Lebanese media issued demands to visit facilities at the airport because normal Lebanese were fearful that Hezbollah was storing massive weapons unloaded from flights originating from Iran there. You can read more about that here, in Al-Arabiyeh. To answer that demand the administrator for the airport facilities, a Hezbollah lackey, led the press around the facilities. When they asked to see a warehouse used for the unloading and staging of cargo, they were denied access. Well, that warehouse no longer exists, as of today.
This morning the IDF announced that it destroyed several surface to ship missiles stored by Hezbollah at various sites inside Beirut. These anti=ship missiles, Chinese C-704 or Iranian C802, have ranges of up to 200 km and have been used previously by Hezbollah. More than six warehouses of these missiles were destroyed in the attacks. Here are more details about the operation.
Last night the IDF conducted several fighter jet operations against rocket and missile manufacturing sites in both Southern Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa Valley. Iran uses Syria as a conduit for transferring missile, drone and rocket components into Lebanon. Hezbollah then assembles the finished product in these factories. This is why you hear about so many operations by the Israeli Air Force in Syria.
Also late last night the IDF struck a facility in southern Lebanon killing the commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit, Muhammed Ismail. In a separate operation the IDF struck a weapons storage facility in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre. This follows the assassination of the more senior Hezbollah commander of their rockets and missile deployment, Muhammed Qabisi.
Lebanon has declared a 3 day period of mourning for Hassan Nasrallah.
Gaza Operations
Meanwhile, in Gaza it is being reported that all the Hamas leadership that remains is restricting their movements for fear of an IDF assassination.
Yemen Operations
A ballistic missile was launched by the Houthis, and was neutralized by IDF air Arrow defense systems before entering Israeli air space. But it must have happened near the Israeli Jordanian border as a large fragment of the missile landed in a small village about 30 km south of Jerusalem. When taking responsibility for this attack, the Houthis claimed that they were targeting our airport.
Syria/Iran/Jordan/Egypt/Iraq/Turkiye
Iran announced that is is cancelling all air flights to Beirut. A wise idea, I think. It turns out that the IDF was able to breach the communications from the Beirut International Airport control tower and take over the communications. They informed an inbound Iranian flight that they would not be permitted to land in Beirut and they should return to Iran. Amazing!!!!!
In a report appearing on NBC News earlier today, an Iranian official was quoted as saying they intend to send forces to Lebanon to fight Israel. This does not appear to be, however, an official announcement of troop deployment.
While in France and much of Europe government officials are upset with the IDF assassination of Nasrallah, there are some locals (other than Israelis) that are happy with the outcome. Here you can see videos of Syrian citizens celebrating and handing out sweets in celebration of his demise. And here are more details from the Free Beacon. During the civil war, Hezbollah and the IRGC conducted ruthless attacks on the civilian population of Syria to prop up the authoritarian regime of Bashir Assad. In return for their support, Iran has pretty much free rein over the entire territory of Syria.
The IDF was also busy very early this morning in Syria. A fighter jet assassinated Ahmed Muhammad Fahd, the head of the Hamas units operating in southern Syria.
IDF/Government
The Home Front Command has updated its policies in the aftermath of Nasrallah’s assassination. All gathering of more than 1,000 people are now forbidden. That affects most of the demonstrations and protests.
The IDF announced that it was calling up three divisions of reservists to the northern part of the country. I think that this is more a defensive move and I do not hear anything about an imminent ground operation in Lebanon. However, I know that the IDF units have been training a lot for such a possibility in the past few months.
Aid
On Friday 183 trucks carrying humanitarian goods unloaded their cargo onto the staging areas inside Gaza. Among these about 169 trucks load of goods were collected for distribution by aid organizations. Nearly all by private aid organizations and only a few by UN organizations.
Politics/Protests
Nearly all senior political figures in Israel, both in the government and in the opposition, issued statements today praising the IDF operation that eliminated Nasrallah.
Organizers of the protests announced that they were calling off the weekly protests under advisement of the Home Front Command as there are now restrictions on how large public groups can be. Consideration is being taken of expected massive rocket and drone attacks coming from Hezbollah.
International
The White House released a statement today, Saturday, regarding the successful IAF operation in Beirut. Here are some excerpts:
Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians… The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups. Ultimately, our aim is to de-escalate the ongoing conflicts in both Gaza and Lebanon through diplomatic means. It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability.
It turns out that the contradictory announcements by Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the USA-France 21 day ceasefire proposal were, in large part, due to the imminent attack on Nasrallah. It was felt that it would be contradictory and dishonest for Israel to appear like it agreed to the proposal, only to launch the assassination within 24 hours. The opportunity to take out Nasrallah opened up on Wednesday morning the 25th, Israel time. It was felt that this was an opportunity that the IDF could not ignore. Yet, Netanyahu had just given his support to the ceasefire concept a day before. His chief aid, Ron Dermer, was in active discussions with the Biden Administration on the wording to be released with the 21 day ceasefire initiative. But, in the meantime, all the security leadership within Israel encouraged the Prime Minister to approve the operation against Nasrallah. So the Prime Minister found himself in an awkward position, vis-a-vis the ongoing discussions with the Biden Administration. Nonetheless, the Biden Administration is still not too happy with the events regarding what they view as the backtracking of the Israeli government on this issue.
The US State Department has ordered all Embassy Staff in Lebanon to leave immediately.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued this statement:
The secretary-general is gravely concerned by the dramatic escalation of events in Beirut in the last 24 hours.
Where has he been the last year as Hezbollah launched an escalated a war on our northern front??
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a declaration that there will be five days of public mourning for Hassan Nasrallah. Meanwhile, he has been taken to an unnamed bunker inside Iran because of fear that he may be next in line.
President for Life of Turkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is competing with Iran over who can make the most outrageous lies about Israel had this to say today:
Lebanon and the Lebanese people are the latest target of a policy of genocide, occupation, and invasion carried out by Israel since October 7.
That’s right, he accuses us of genocide due to events on October 7 by his good buddies, that he financially and fiscally supports, at Hamas.
Speaking of outrageous comments, our good friend and ally in Europe, EU Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell, had this to say early this morning “What we do is to put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank.” That’s right, all we need to do is stop Prime Minister Netanyahu and the entire Middle East will be at peace. Just so you know Borrell comes from the ruling Spanish Socialist Party in Madrid that is currently ruling that country. Here is a sample of what our “good friends” (sic) in Spain think of us and what happened on October 7. They are hosting celebratory events to commemorate Hama’s operation.
And our good friends in France seem to feel the urge to comment on the situation. A statement issued by the caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and his Foreign Minister Noel Barrot, insisted on an immediate end to Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon. Yet, these two were very silent for the last 12 months as Hezbollah pounded Israel’s northern communities with indiscriminate rocket fire. They are caretakers because France is in a bit of a constitutional crisis as there is not a clear majority enabling a government to be formed. Maybe, like Iran and Lebanon, France will hold several days of mourning to remember their good friend Hasan Nasrallah??
And In Your Copious Spare Time…
Bret Stephens is at it again and published this great OpEd whose title says it all “ Hezbollah Is Everyone’s Problem”. It appeared in The New York Times.
If you have the time, here is a very relevant review of the book “The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process” written by Robert Spencer. The Review was written by Anjuli Pandavar, a British writer and social critic who has a very interesting background, coming from a Muslim upbringing in Apartheid South Africa. Both the review and book are worthwhile reads.
Each year around this time the Israels Bureau of Statistics publishes data regarding the population of Israel. Here is the summary. Most noteworthy are the statistics about Israeli’s leaving/returning and the number of new immigrants. The year 2023 saw a doubling of Israelis leaving the country over the prior year, from 26,000 to 55,000. Part of this is a result of the change in how they compute this. It used to be that an Israeli who stayed abroad for more than 365 days was classified as emigrating. Now it is 275 days. But, without doubt The War and the judicial reform chaos contributed to seeing a jump in Israelis leaving. Some Israelis leave to study abroad, some for work and some just prefer to live elsewhere. There was also a drop of new immigrants to the country in 2023.