The story continues from Part 1 – – –
2. The Assassination of Nasrallah Friday 27th September
On Wednesday, September 25, 2024, Hezbollah announced that its Resistance fighters targeting the Mossad headquarters in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, marking a first. According to the group’s statement, the HQ was responsible for the assassination of Resistance leaders and the waves of pagers and walkie-talkies explosions, which killed dozens and injured thousands of people across Lebanon. The attack was unprecedented, as it marked the first time the Lebanese Resistance group targeted Tel Aviv suburbs with a missile, cementing “the strike for strike” and “Tel Aviv for Beirut” equation. It was also the FIRST time that anyone attacked the Mossad HQ.
Sept 27 Fri – An unredeemable serial war criminal and psychopathic genocidal, violating scores of UN resolutions, popped up at the UN General Assembly in New York and then ordered, from inside the building, yet another war crime: wiping out an entire blocks in southern Beirut with dozens of American bunker buster bombs, including the BLU-109 with a JDAM precision guiding system – leaving countless civilians still unaccounted for under the rubble, including Nasrallah. As the war criminal addressed the UN General Assembly, over half of the delegates staged a mass walkout: the hall was de facto nearly empty of real Global South diplomats.
On Friday afternoon, a massive blast hit the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, killing Nasrallah, two of his security guards and IRGC commander. The blasts leveled six high-rise apartment towers in the densely populated suburb. Other buildings sank into the ground, surrounded by pancaked concrete and twisted metal spanning an area larger than a soccer field. The Israeli military stated that 83, 1-ton bombs were dropped over the span of a few minutes to kill Nasrallah and others gathered with him at the site. Besides these deaths, many of the 100s of residents of these 6 buildings have also been killed. Bodies are still being pulled out of the rubble nearly a week later.
The assassination of Nasrallah resulted in wild celebrations in the West. Many are now celebrating that Israel has achieved an ‘extraordinary decapitation’ Hezbollah’s entire leadership in sequence: first “eliminating” the low echelon foot soldiers via the pager attack, then higher ups with radios and Hollywood-like missile strikes, all the way up to a final decapitating attack on the top heads themselves.
The southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital awoke to widespread destruction on Saturday, 28 September after Israeli warplanes launched dozens of airstrikes all through the night, razing residential buildings and civilian infrastructure to the ground. Israeli jets launched over 30 raids during Friday night and into Saturday morning, hitting various neighborhoods of Beirut and other areas. Three days later, Hezbollah released a statement announcing the martyrdom of Nasrallah, joining a handful of Resistance leaders who dedicated their lives for the sake of fighting against the Israeli occupation. The assassination has sent shockwaves throughout the region.
What many in the West forget is that as Israel and America eliminate resistance leaders, there is a queue of others to replace them. And, those that replace fallen leaders are much more radical. One should mention that his successor is his cousin, who is more a hard-liner than Nasrallah was. One more tit bit – his daughter is married to the son of Qasim Soleimani, the former head of the IRGC and Quds Force, who Trump assassinated in January 2020. The problem is, such blandishments miss the greater nuances: Israel is able to do what it does against its neighbor’s thanks entirely to the system of Western hegemony which endows Israel with omnipotent-like powers of commerce and military alike. In addition, the media platforms aid in lies and misinformation, with a slanted narrative. Today, thanks to social media, the two families are finding it harder to cover up the truth, and their lies are being exposed at a much faster rate today than was possible even a few years ago.
Israel did manage to find serious breaches in Lebanon’s – and Iran’s security. In the case of Beirut, the whole city is infested with infiltrators. Fifth columnists of all stripes move back and forth doing anything they want. Iran is a much more serious proposition. Even as the IRGC’s Commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan was also killed alongside Nasrallah in Beirut, the IRGC itself in Tehran may have been compromised. For instance, many have exulted over Israel’s “remarkable” ability to infiltrate all its enemies’ organizations with spies, allowing them to pinpoint the locations of figures like Nasrallah or Ismail Haniyeh. But just like North Korea has been artificially starved via decades’ long sanctions and embargo regimes compared to the South, so does Israel have unquantifiable unfair economic advantages over all its neighbors which ultimately make it quite elementary to wield decisive sway and subversion over them. It’s no different to win by merely paying off a host of poor Iraqi generals with blood money; to them a cool million bucks is a lifetime treasure, while to the US State Dept. it is pocket change.
By keeping neighbors poor with the help of the predominantly predatory Western economic model—which includes the dollar reserve currency dominion , Israel is easily able to leverage money onto artificially impoverished nations like Lebanon and even Iran in order to pay off the needed people to become turncoat agents. Israel is flush with endless billions of cash from the taxpayers of the world’s richest nations which is utilized to bribe the desperate and poor in these countries to provide intelligence—which is likely how the locations of Nasrallah, Haniyeh, etc., were obtained. In short, it’s not a “miracle” of operational capabilities but rather Israel’s historic handicap against its neighbors which allows the achievement of whatever small victories are laid claim to. Now they’re signaling intention to do a “limited invasion” of Lebanon.
One must recall that smaller anti-imperial insurgencies must always rely on hybrid warfare and the weapon of time against larger, more powerful foes. Has Israel “defeated” Hezbollah? Even if they did, what kind of feat would it be? Hezbollah is not a country, it’s a tiny paramilitary force living inside of a country in large part hostile to it, which means many in Lebanon quite freely give intelligence to Israel—so what can you expect? Iran on the other hand is quite a long ways away from Israel, separated by several countries—so how much exactly do you expect Iran to do?
No, the resistance’s main weapon is the slow erosion of time. I do not see any victory in Israel’s actions thus far, but what I do see is major jumping to conclusions by people who take every Israeli claim at face value, including claims that they’ve “destroyed all Hezbollah’s rockets”, etc., without any proof other than a few grainy distant videos of civilian apartment buildings exploding.
As a last interesting note: might sound like nothing but this is one of the most extraordinary revealing things Israel has said. In the words of Israeli officials themselves Nasrallah literally died because he refused a side deal that abandoned the Palestinians. He was one of the only ones actually willing to make them face accountability for it and, in their own words, that’s why he had to die.
The MAN – From Birth to Death
A myth was shattered. A legend is born. The Resistance, more than ever, won’t back down. Gen Soleimani, more than a symbol, was the conceptualizer of the Axis of Resistance. For all its setbacks, especially in the past few weeks, the Axis of Resistance is much stronger now than in January 2000. Soleimani – the martyr, the legend – left an unparalleled legacy that will never cease to inspire all the West Asian nodes of the Resistance.
The same will happen to Nasrallah. More than a symbol, he was the Face of the Axis of Resistance, extraordinary popular and respected all across the Arab street and the lands of Islam. Nasrallah saw his martyrdom coming, and welcomed it. Shortly before the Israelis completely leveled six multi-story buildings that housed many women and children, slaughtering dozens of non-combatants in order to martyr a few Resistance leaders, Nasrallah tweeted: “I may not stay among you for a long time. Procedures have been devised so that we are prepared. Even if we are all martyred, even if our homes are destroyed over our heads, we will never abandon the option of Islamic resistance.”
On February 16, 1992, the Israeli occupation forces assassinated Abbas Mousavi, along with his wife and his five-year-old son. Hezbollah’s Shura Council then convened and chose Nasrallah as the group’s Secretary-General, despite his relatively young age compared to other council members. He initially rejected the decision to be elected, as he was only 32 years old. However, after their insistence, he completed the remainder of Mousawi’s term, which ended in 1993, and has since been re-elected several times before his martyrdom. Nasrallah recalled that the first decision he took was to target Israeli settlements with Katyusha rockets, pointing out that this was the first time that the Islamic Resistance ever bombed Israeli settlements.
During Nasrallah’s tenure as Secretary-General, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon engaged in numerous heroic confrontations with the Israeli occupation, most notably during the July 1993 Seven-Day War, the April 1996 aggression, and culminating in the historic victory of May 25, 2000, when most of Lebanon’s territories were liberated from Israeli occupation. This was followed by the strategic and historic defeat of the Israeli military in the 2006 war. In 2012, Hezbollah also fought the Western terrorist threat that aimed to cripple Syria and continue toward Lebanon, managing in 2017 to liberate the common border area between the two countries in what came to be known as the Second Liberation. This victory saw the myth of the Israeli military as an invincible army shattered at the hands of the Resistance, proving that “Israel” can indeed be defeated.
During his speech in the liberated city of Bint Jbeil during the celebration that followed the historic achievement, he described “Israel” as “weaker than a spider’s web.” Two days into the war, the Lebanese Resistance struck across the Lebanese coastline a Saar-5 Class destroyer that had taken part in the naval blockade imposed on Lebanon, shelling its towns and cities. The operation was announced by Hassan in a voice message. He said, “Now… In the middle of the sea… Look at the warship that has attacked Beirut, while it burns and sinks before your very eyes.”
The war ended on August 14, 2006. It marked a moment when Hezbollah set an equation that deterred “Israel” from waging another aggression on Lebanese territory and established a more than decade-long peace for the residents of South Lebanon.
Learning from 2006: Israel’s ‘Doctrine of Force’
One of the key lessons Tel Aviv appears to have absorbed from its 2006 military campaign is to apply an excessive use of force, regardless of any accompanying international backlash. Despite its overwhelming firepower, Israel’s ground invasion during the 2006 war exposed significant tactical failures. After two weeks of heavy airstrikes, Israel launched “Operation Change of Direction,” deploying thousands of soldiers into southern Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah fighters. However, the ground incursion proved disastrous for the Israeli army. The Lebanese resistance, deeply entrenched in underground tunnels and well-versed in guerrilla warfare, inflicted heavy losses on Israeli forces, most notably in the Saluki Valley ambush, where Hezbollah blocked the southern end of a column of tanks, then fired anti-tank missiles to devastate Israeli units who were helpless without artillery and infantry support.
“Anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook,” Timur Goksel, a Turkish diplomat, military officer, and former spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). These tactical failures continue to haunt Israel’s military leadership as it contemplates a new ground invasion.
In contrast to Tel Aviv’s military’s concerns, Hezbollah emerged from the 2006 conflict stronger and more emboldened. In the years since the war, Hezbollah has significantly expanded its military capabilities, amassing between 120,000 to 200,000 rockets and missiles, compared to the 15,000 it possessed in 2006. This arsenal includes long-range missiles capable of striking targets across Israel, a capability that has grown increasingly concerning for Israeli military planners. While Israel has also prepared for any possible ground invasion, this time, it has decided to carry out preemptive and tactical strikes against Hezbollah, including targeting alleged stockpile sites of the Lebanese resistance’s arsenal.
A day after “Israel” waged it’s still ongoing war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah launched its operations against Israeli targets in occupied territories in support of Gaza and its Resistance, linking the end of its strikes to the end of the Israeli aggression on the besieged enclave. The Lebanese group’s attacks emptied settlements in northern occupied Palestine along the border with Lebanon and displaced nearly 200,000 Israeli settlers, frightened to return under Hezbollah’s fire.
On Friday 27th September, Israel killed Nasrallah.
About 108 were killed in Saturday 28 September alone, and officials say that many bodies remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Sept 29 Sunday– Israel airstrikes in Lebanon assassinated multiple Palestinian resistance leaders overnight, including a strike that hit a residential building within the center of Beirut for the first time in the current war.
The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, said Israel killed the group’s leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu al-Amin, along with his wife, son, and daughter. The strike destroyed their house in a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre in the early hours of Monday.
Sept 30 Monday- the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said three of its leaders were killed in a strike in Beirut’s Cola district late Sunday night. The missiles targeted the upper floor of an apartment building. Monday’s attack in the Cola district appeared to be the first Israeli strike in Beirut’s central region. Lebanese authorities say at least 105 people were killed and 359 people were injured from Israel’s attacks on Sunday.
Until now, Israeli strikes have focused on the southern suburbs of Dahiya and the cities and villages in the south and east of the country. Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon has killed at least 136 people over the weekend, as airstrikes continued on the country’s capital into the morning of 30 September.
Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes across Lebanon over the past week, razing dozens of buildings and killing entire families. Nevertheless, the scale of the destruction has forced tens of thousands to sleep out in the open as government and informal shelters quickly overcrowded. Over1,000 citizens have been killed by Israel since 8 October, including 104 children and 194 women, and nearly 10,000 have been injured.
Israel came under attack from several fronts late on 28 September, including a hit the vicinity of occupied Jerusalem. The Lebanese resistance has yet to announce the operations. It said on Sunday morning in a statement that it hit the Ofek military camp with a barrage of Fadi-1 rockets.
Tuesday October 1 – Hezbollah announced on the launch of barrages of Fadi 4 rockets at the Galilot Base belonging to Israel’s Military Intelligence Unit 8200 and the Mossad headquarters located in the suburb of Tel Aviv. The statement added that the strikes were launched as part of the “Khaybar” series of operations and in response to the “targeting of civilians and the massacres committed by the enemy, and at the call of ‘At your service, O Nasrallah.’” This is the first time the Lebanese resistance has fired Fadi 4 rockets in the current war with Israel.
Wednesday, 2 Oct – Israeli warplanes launched Beirut, targeting the Silver Tower residential building near Al-Zahra Hospital in the first strike, while targeting an apartment inside a building near the Al-Gondoline roundabout, close to the Kuwaiti embassy in Beirut.
Thursday Oct 3 – Israel is conducting more major airstrikes in Beirut Thursday evening. Israeli officials are now claiming that strikes last night targeted head of Hezbollah’s executive committee Hashim Safi al-Din. He’s been widely reported as the likely successor to take over the Shia paramilitary group after Nasrallah’s killing last week. The strikes that targeted the Safi al-Din have been described as even larger than the ones the killedNasrallah. About 73 bombs were used. Casualty numbers are as yet unconfirmed. At least nine people have been killed in overnight Israeli attacks on Beirut, which involved a series of rare airstrikes directly on the city center, not far from parliament building and the prime minister’soffice, as well as a United Nations headquarters. More strikes also rocked the southern suburb of Dayhiheh, which has been frequently hit.
The Israeli occupation forces are losing terribly at the occupied Palestinian-Lebanese border area, with Hezbollah dealing heavy blow after blow to the forces who cannot manage to invade. – Hezbollah carried out a meticulously planned ambush on an elite Israeli force in the Odeisseh region of South Lebanon, causing significant casualties among the Israeli soldiers on Wednesday morning. While the ambush was unfolding, a nearby support group targeted Israeli enemy supply lines to prevent reinforcements from reaching the ensnared Israeli force. This secondary operation struck the settlements of Misgav Am, Kfar Giladi, and Metulla with artillery shells and rockets, further hindering any Israeli efforts to back up their forces.
As the situation deteriorated, the Israeli Air Force intervened, deploying helicopters to provide cover fire in the region and assist in the extraction of the casualties. In a desperate attempt to cover their retreat, the Israeli troops began using smoke grenades to obscure their movements and facilitate the recovery of their wounded soldiers.
In ongoing fierce fighting in the south, Hezbollah claims to have mounted more attacks against invading Israeli ground forces. This comes following a bad day for the IDF on Wednesday, given it confirmed eight Israeli troop deaths, most of these during a fierce
Below are the latest claims of battlefield successes by Hezbollah
Hezbollah claimed to have detonated two explosive devices at dawn “when an enemy Israeli infantry force attempted to infiltrate towards the village of Maroun al-Ras” in southern Lebanon.
Fighters attacked Israeli soldiers with an Iranian-made Falaq missile east of the Sasa settlement in northern Israel, and a different group of soldiers with a rocket salvo west of the same settlement.
In what regional sources are reporting as a major on-ground development, Hezbollah said detonated alarge bomb as IDF troops entered the village of Maroun al-Ras in southern Lebanon, resulting in deaths and casualties.
As of Thursday afternoon, Commenting on the results of the confrontations that had been ongoing since this morning, “The heroic epic which our fighters are conducting against Israeli elite forces at several axes in South Lebanon resulted in the killing and wounding of more than 80 soldiers and officers, with almost five tanks destroyed.” zone. At least four occupation helicopters were sent to evacuate the casualties, as they, with the assistance of Israeli tanks, opened fire in the area to cover for the Israeli soldiers. However, they were met with intense artillery shelling by Hezbollah.
Friday Oct 4
Dozens of loud explosions were heard in the Mrayjeh area in the southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, just past midnight on Friday, due to an Israeli air raid. Residents of Sidon and Tyre in southern Lebanon heard the loud explosions, which speaks to the magnitude of the strikes launched by Israeli warplanes. The targeted site is in close proximity to the Beirut International Airport, which can be seen in the background of circulating footage of the strikes. The targeted area hosted health facilities, emergency services facilities, and schools, adding that this has been one of the most destructive strikes since the beginning of the aggression.
Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have intensified in recent days, as nearly 20 were launched only a day earlier. In particular, the Israeli Air Force has concentrated its strikes after midnight, terrorizing civilians throughout the nighttime. These strikes and air raids have also been paired with multiple attempts of incursions into Lebanese border towns. However, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon has been able to ambush and eliminate invading forces, including 17 on Thursday alone. On Wednesday the Israeli military command admitted that nine of its officers and soldiers were killed in battles with Hezbollah Resistance fighters, most of whom are part of the Special Forces Egoz Unit.
Thursday into Friday airstrikes have reportedly damaged and closed the main artery from Lebanon to Syria, at a moment Lebanon’s refugee crisis grows more acute, and after tens of thousands had already fled back into Syria. The Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria was severely damaged by an Israeli airstrike early on Friday, forcing the road to close and leaving those fleeing to cross on foot. Videos circulating on social media show the aftermath of the strike and the destruction it caused.
Masnaa is the primary border crossing between Lebanon and Syria. The Israeli army struck a 3.5-kilometer underground tunnel crossing from Lebanon into Syria. It says it is working to stifle the flow of weapons from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The actual aim of this destruction was to stop the flow of the displaced into Syria.
Saturday 5th to Thursday 10th October -The Ground Invasion
Israel probably is less concerned about damaging its international reputation than it was in 2006: after the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, killing more in Lebanon is not likely to make it worse.
But in the wake of the assassinations of Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah commanders and strategists, the occupation state has ramped up its offensive in Lebanon, with devastating consequences. Targeted airstrikes on Hezbollah’s communication infrastructure and leadership compounds have claimed the lives of over 37 Hezbollah fighters, but it is the civilian casualties that have been most staggering.
Despite the enormous setbacks, Hezbollah has continued to launch rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory, demonstrating a resilience that reflects its strategic gains from the 2006 war. In the last few days, the Lebanese resistance appears to have turned the tide further, striking key Israeli port city Haifa with over 200 projectiles in a historically unprecedented attack on the city and its environs. Daily, Hezbollah launches multiple attacks at various targets, including military bases, troop gatherings, tanks and other armored vehicles. It has also began striking strategic targets such as Haifa port, oil infrastructure, and so on.
The story continues in Part 3 – – –
