Hezbollah And Hamas Hit Tel Aviv, Israel Says It Launched “Preemptive Strikes” On Lebanon

On Sunday morning an unprecedented exchange of fire between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel caught the world’s attention, as conflicting reports from either side emerged on what was truly transpiring. Later that day, both clarified their positions, as later Hamas launched a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv and seemingly succeeded in hitting a military target from Gaza. However, there is still much confusion as to what exactly just took place.

The events on Sunday began with a series of Israeli air raids on various positions in Southern Lebanon, striking mainly around areas that were not populated, but also inside some villages. Shortly afterwards, the Israeli military declared that they were conducting waves of “preemptive strikes” against Lebanon in a bid to combat an imminent Hezbollah attack. At 5:00 AM (Palestine time), the Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari released a video address in which he claimed that the Israeli Air Force had struck 40 different locations, thwarting a military operation that was planned to be carried out from Lebanese territory.

However, by this time, Lebanese Hezbollah were already firing rockets and drones into Israeli military targets. Videos filmed by Israelis living in northern occupied Palestine featured a drone collision on a road, air defense fire, rocket impacts, and there were even videos showing Israeli fighter jets failing to shoot down attack drones that were fired from Lebanese territory.

Israeli tank fire continued during this time against open areas along the southern Lebanese border, while their air force carried out a second wave of air strikes. According to three communique’s released by Hezbollah, they had conducted a retaliatory attack for Israel’s assassination of its commander, Fouad Shukr, in Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut. Despite the fact that Israel had struck a civilian tower in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburb, killing women and children, the 320 rockets and drones fired by Hezbollah in retaliation only targeted military sites.

Slowly, the Israeli media began reporting on a “successful” defensive military operation, claiming that Hezbollah had intended to fire around 6,000 rockets, at least 1,000 of which were aimed towards Tel Aviv and that it had thwarted the retaliatory attack; both through their air defense system’s ability to shoot down most of the incoming projectile and their alleged destruction of Hezbollah rockets, in addition to launchers, before they were even fired. This was the narrative eventually adopted by Israel, which claimed a defensive victory and managed to convince its population of this version of events, despite the evident damage inflicted by the Hezbollah attack in the north. In response to this rather confusing representation of events, some commentators from Arabic media began claiming that Hezbollah had actually fired on Israel before the extensive bombing campaign against southern Lebanon.

In a scheduled speech that night, Hezbollah Secretary General, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, addressed the entire situation and presented a completely separate version of events. The Hezbollah leader corrected the previously released statistics on rocket fire, stating that 350 rockets had been fired at 6 military bases, 2 artillery positions and three army barracks located in the occupied Golan Heights and northern occupied Palestine. All of this fire was aimed at providing cover for a suicide drone attack against the “Gilot Camps” that houses Israel’s military intelligence, including the 8200 unit, and is located north of Tel Aviv at a distance of 110 kilometers from Lebanon.

He also contradicted a previous series of Hezbollah communiques, which had stated clearly that his party’s military operation was only an initial response to Israel’s assassination attack on Beirut. Instead, he gave Israel an ultimatum, either show the evidence of the damage caused by the drone attack or continue lying and expect another retaliatory strike. Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah also denied that Israel had carried out a “preemptive attack” on Lebanon, stating that instead the Israelis hit sites that were mostly evacuated by Hezbollah and were empty, while noting that two rocket launch sites were in fact destroyed, but that Hezbollah has thousands of them and that this has happened various times throughout the past 11 months.

Nasrallah said that the Israelis launched an ineffective attack when they spotted troop movement, as a sudden reaction to Hezbollah’s retaliatory operation, and that his party had succeeded in launching the exact number of munitions they intended, successfully carrying out its attack on the main target in two phases. The first phase was the rocket attack, while the second phase was the drone attack on the military intelligence target in Tel Aviv.

Later that night, the Hamas armed wing, al-Qassam brigades, then launched a barrage of M90 rockets from the city of Khan Younis in Gaza, directly bypassing Israeli Air Defense systems, with at least one rocket impacting a military facility in southern Tel Aviv. The rocket fire was announced to have come in response to the recent Israeli massacres committed against civilians in Gaza.

How Do We Read This Situation?

If we were to analyze this current situation according to the reliability of sources, despite Hezbollah having a long track record of proven honesty with its military affairs and Israel’s incessant lying about almost everything it does, we would be in a difficult position. The truth is, both sides have claimed success and although Israel’s narrative appears to have many more holes in it, there is no proof to suggest either narrative is fully correct, as of yet. This is because both sides are currently engaging in psychological warfare operations: From Israel’s side, this is aimed at convincing its own population that it wasn’t just attacked in a rather embarrassing way, while Hezbollah appears to be preparing something bigger and is yet to release all the details of its operation.

If we are to base our understanding of events on the timeline of reports which emerged from both Lebanon and the Israeli media, in addition to pairing this with the speech of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, it can be deciphered that Israel did fire the first shot. However, contrary to the Israeli military’s version of events, they don’t appear to have thwarted the Hezbollah operation.

We can draw this conclusion from the extensive footage posted on social media, featuring direct rocket and drone impacts, in addition to Iron Dome system and fighter jet failures to intercept drones and rockets. There were various fires that erupted in the occupied Golan Heights at military sites, direct rocket hits on homes and factories, at least one drone explosion on a highway and a direct strike on a naval vessel off the coast of Nahariyya city, which Israel admitted killed a soldier and injured a number of others. What we do not have evidence of is whether the primary military base that was targeted by Hezbollah, located in Tel Aviv, was actually hit, or if so, whether the damage was significant. Israel denies that any of its bases were damaged, but refuses to produce any evidence to prove its claim and since the Israelis denied that the attack caused any significant damage, there is no way that any credible analyst could take their word for such a claim. On the other hand, Hezbollah itself does not claim to know the extent of the damage it caused at the “Gilot Camps” site.

There can be no doubt that the Israelis did not pull off some kind of remarkable defensive operation, that is clear according to the video evidence we have from its own side and the video evidence documenting strikes inside Lebanese territory. After having analyzed around a dozen videos taken from Southern Lebanon, there is one video which shows an airstrike that results in a secondary explosion — which often suggests that a weapons depot, loaded projectile launchers, or military equipment was destroyed — while out of all the Israeli drone footage captured from some 40 separate air raids, it could only produce evidence of two cases where there appears to be secondary explosions. If we pair this with the fact that Hezbollah’s Secretary General also stated that the Israelis only managed to destroy two rocket launchers, it appears to match up.

There is another factor that indicates the initial Israeli series of strikes were mostly a failure, and that is that no Hezbollah fighters died from these attacks. Three Lebanese fighters were killed this Sunday, two from Hezbollah and another belonging to the Amal movement, but were assassinated while traveling in a car, after the conclusion of the Hezbollah retaliatory operation.

At this time, we can conclude only the following: Israel fired first but did not cause significant damage or manage to thwart Hezbollah’s ability to launch the largest attack against Israeli targets since 2006, an attack which undoubtably inflicted considerable damage in the north.

How far back each side planned their strikes is unknown, as is the extent of the damage inflicted by Hezbollah’s attack, specifically to its primary target. This Hezbollah response took roughly a month to occur, which means that this also gave Israel the time to plan its own response carefully. As of now, despite Hezbollah hitting Israeli military targets, factories, and settlements, while killing and injuring Israeli soldiers, Israel is not speaking of its own response, which indicates that we have now seen the previously planned response they had prepared.

It is plausible to assume that Hezbollah could have fed the Israelis disinformation that would purposely lead them into attacking dud targets, which is why the Israeli strikes were largely ineffective. The fact that Hezbollah also released communiques that indicated their operation was only an initial response, while its leader then stated that it may have been the full response and that another operation is possible if Hezbollah decides the retaliation did not achieve satisfactory achievements, indicates there are mind games being played, purposefully.

What Happens Next?

The way I interpret the situation is that Hezbollah will launch further action and may have planned this whole situation from the beginning, but its next actions will be contingent upon a variety of factors. Iran is also yet to launch its retaliatory military operation against the Israelis, after Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Hanniyeh in their capital city of Tehran. On top of this, Yemen’s Ansarallah have also declared that they will retaliate against Israel’s indiscriminate attack against oil tankers at its Hodeidah Port.

While the optics of the Hezbollah operation are not exactly good, with Israel seeming to have escaped a serious response, the Hamas rocket attack on Tel Aviv later that same day dealt a major blow to the credibility of the Israeli military. When al-Qassam’s rockets penetrated Tel Aviv, this indicated that Hamas has still maintained the military capability to strike the Israeli Capital (under international law) after 11-months of all-out war against the besieged territory. While the likes of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are constantly claiming to be on the verge of defeating Hamas in Gaza, the rocket fire embarrassed their Iron Dome air defense system — at a time when Israel’s defense systems are on a high alert — and proved that even the ability to launch long range rockets hasn’t been wiped out in almost a year of war in Gaza.

With the ultimatum given to the Israelis by Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah — either admit to the damage or face another attack — it is now likely that Israel will choose to launch an attack on Lebanon again, most likely another attempt to assassinate a senior Hezbollah official. It is unlikely that Israel will admit to any blow being committed against it, especially when its narrative is currently the equivalent to a declaration that they fully thwarted the attack. So, instead of giving up on its propaganda, it may choose to try and raise the stakes by carrying out a new assassination that aims to embarrass Hezbollah.

Israel understands that it cannot win a direct war against Lebanon, but the message so far is that it will possibly receive another blow and that the price for high-level assassinations may be much lower than anticipated. If Hezbollah is to conclude its retaliatory action here, the message to the Israelis is that you can kill civilians and leaders in Beirut without even having to suffer a loss on the propaganda front. In reality, this retaliatory operation has not yet produced any proven result and is not likely to achieve Hezbollah’s desired deterrence. Even if the drones hit their targets, this operation is roughly equivalent to Iran’s ‘Operation True Promise‘ in April, which demonstrated Iran’s capabilities but failed to achieve deterrence. Hezbollah understands this, which is why they have given Israel an ultimatum.

The real question now is: Who will strike first? Will it be Iran, Ansarallah and Hezbollah, or are we about to see more Israeli strikes that seek to inflict a propaganda blow, and at what cost?