Israel launches strikes on southern Lebanon as IDF fighter jets break sound barrier above Beirut

[Eugene]

Source: Euronews with AP

Israel launches strikes on southern Lebanon as IDF fighter jets break sound barrier above Beirut

By Euronews with AP
Published on 19/09/2024 - 16:59 GMT+2•Updated 17:57

Meanwhile in Beirut, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed "just punishment" for the two-day walkie-talkie and pager attacks, which killed more than 30, wounded thousands and was widely believed to be carried out by Israel.

Israel has launched a fresh wave of strikes on southern Lebanon in an attempt to target and destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure, according to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

The attack follows a similar assault by Hezbollah, which launched a new barrage of drone strikes into northern Israel on Thursday.

In Beirut, Israel's fighter jets broke the sound barrier, flying low above the Lebanese capital as Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, began a televised speech for the first time since the targeted explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies across the country, calling them a “severe blow” that crossed a “red line”.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.euronews.com/2024/09/19/israel-launches-strikes-on-southern-lebanon-as-cross-border-tensions-continue-to-rise

[ColinC]

1. I wonder if Netanyahu is doing this for the same reason he wouldn't agree to a ceasefire

Is he trying to make Trump president? He knows that a substantial Lebanese American electorate will help decide this election. I wonder if this is calculated.

[moniss]

2. Did whatever he wanted in Gaza despite "warnings"

from other countries. Was warned against expanding the conflict regionally but then he did anyway. One can say the aerial campaign today is in response to the Hezbollah rockets of the last several months and by itself, in isolation, could be argued to only be a response to the rockets.

But Israeli action is not in isolation of the pager/walkie talkie explosions of the last couple of days. That was a planned event that required Israel to rig those devices even before 10/7. This didn't all happen as a "last minute" thing. It took long planning and installation of personnel to affect those devices. So it's clear that Israel planned this long ago. Perhaps several years of planning and execution.

So if Israel now tries to claim this is all just a response to the last several months of Hezbollah rockets it is easily shown to be a lie on it's face. This was planned beginning long before now. But it doesn't change anything really because Netanyahu will do anything he wants, give false assurances to his suppliers of weapons and if they try to restrict weapons sales he will immediately unleash the tactic of calling them anti-Semitic and trying to keep Israel from defending itself. So lie to your allies you demand weapons from and slander them if they don't give in to any and all behavior. It's the Netanyahu way of treating the ones he calls friends.

[Beastly Boy]

3. This is just a response to 200,000 Israelis being displaced by Hezbollah rockets fired at them,

starting in October of last year. (https://www.timesofisrael.com/about-200000-israelis-internally-displaced-amid-ongoing-gaza-war-tensions-in-north/#:~:text=Some%20200%2C000%20Israelis%20have%20been%20internally%20displaced%20in,and%20allied%20Palestinian%20factions%2C%20according%20to%20Israeli%20authorities.)

They want their country back, free of harassment from Hezbollah. And after nearly a year of this shit, their patience finally ran out.

[moniss]

4. They didn't formulate and execute the pager

thing since 10/7. It began before that. As far as what goes on in Southern Lebanon and around Beirut long before the 200,000 pulled out the IDF has been taking actions in Lebanon that even the retired Israeli generals and government leaders admitted were constant provocations and it was "refreshing", even belatedly, for them to admit this in their memoirs etc. The picture painted by the Israeli government was always that they were just sitting on their side of the border minding their own situation and "trying to live in peace" when in fact as they admitted much later on nearly the entire time they were executing a plan of "attack to provoke response" and then claim it was the people on the Lebanese side of the border who were attacking and that the IDF was only responding.

Horrible groups like Hezbollah and Hamas etc. didn't pop up out of thin air and as response to nothing. When the British said to the UN in the '40's that going ahead with a partition plan that did not have agreement by all sides they warned that this never-ending conflict would be the result. But now here we are and the British were right. It doesn't matter whether the name is Hamas or Hezbollah because there was violent resistance and terror before they existed and there will be groups by other names after. The Israeli approach and the Palestinian/Supporters approach has not worked in nearly 80 years.

One can say this has a "solution" that is elimination of this military group or that but the seeds for new groups to take their place have been growing along. In nearly 80 years neither "side" has shown, as I've said before, the olive branch in one hand without having a whole other non-disclosed plan in the other hand to keep going at each other. That is born out when the memoirs are written and the documents disclosed. Neither side here wants anything less than to get what they want by any means necessary and to keep on that track. There is no desire to forgive each other only to blame each other and each one holds that in their heart every moment of every day. A never-ending battle of each side behaving like children who scream to the adults "he hit me first".

I've been clear from the beginning about condemning the horrible behavior by all sides and their supporters in the region and around the world through the many decades before 1948 and after. People posit to me "well what is your solution?" and I honestly don't have one although at one time I thought the "2 state" thing could make it. So now all I can do is make observations like I did the other day about the Gaza gas fields perhaps being developed to help the future of Gaza by enlisting a consortium of countries in the region who have experience in developing that kind of resource and integrating into the benefit of an economy. But as far as whether it will happen or peace will come I have no confidence. Nothing has shown in nearly 80 years to give it.

[Beastly Boy]

5. There are unconfirmed reports of Mossad-run shell companies established prior to 10/7,

particularly in Hungary and Bulgaria, that had ties to the"pager thing", but this doesn't by any means indicate that the "pager thing" was formulated or executed before 10/7. In fact, there is no evidence of any company anywhere that had ties to the "pager thing" before 2024. The Taiwanese company whose name appears on the pagers denies it manufactured them. Hungarian government denies the pagers were manufactured in Hungary. Hezbollah officials themselves are on record stating that they don't know where, when or how these pagers were manufactured or rigged, neither are they able to establish a contiguous chain of supply of these pagers to Hezbollah.

So while the existence of shell companies tied to Mossad around the world is likely, there are absolutely no grounds for your claim that "They didn't formulate and execute the pager thing since 10/7. It began before that."

Nor does your statement make any logistical sense. It is possible that sabotage of communication devices was formulated in principle, but it is not even theoretically possible to work out the specifics of such operation without the knowledge of Hezbollah's intention to replace cell phones with the technologically inferior pagers, which Hezbollah itself had no intention of implementing prior to February 2024 at the earliest.

Notwithstanding the mentions of "provocations" by various Israeli officials you are referring to, Hezbollah officials openly acknowledge that the escalation of rocket attacks on civilian targets in the north of Israel which resulted in the displacement of some 200,000 Israelis was prompted by the events in Gaza, not Lebanon, which, by a strange coincidence, didn't happen prior to October 7, 2023. It happened AFTER Hezbollah started targeting civilians in Israel, and Israel endured it for nearly a year before the pagers started exploding in the pockets of Hezbollah operatives.

I would venture a guess that any state anywhere in the world would run out of patience when enduring assaults on their territory for nearly a year.

But that's just me. Apparently, the notion of impunity in the face of a year of relentless cross-border assaults deliberately targeting civilians has its fans.

[moniss]

6. Media are reporting around 70,000 rather than

200,000 and we don't know how many of those were evacuation order related beyond the zone of where rockets have impacted. Kudos for an abundance of caution. My reference to the prior activities regarding admissions by officials is strictly about any perception that the action in Lebanon has always just been responsive in nature. Should the Lebanese not tire of assaults on their territory? Being tired of cross-border attacks can go both ways.

Articles in the Arab press are saying the pagers began arriving in Lebanon in 2022 and the most recent batch early in 2024. It is not likely that in 90 days or so the Mossad formulated the plan, created shell companies or integrated personnel into existing companies and carried out the tampering. Given the year of 2022 it is more likely that they intercepted communication or had other intelligence about the fact that Hezbollah was ordering/using this pager and began the planning at that time and it is even possible that the basic outlines of the plan were there even before that and were moved along when info fell into place as to the desire for a particular pager etc. In any event I don't believe the sequence of event was 10/7 happens, Mossad thinks up a plan, personnel and companies are created, materials are brought into those personnel, the pagers are made and then shipped to Hezbollah all in a matter of 90 days or so.

[Beastly Boy]

7. The authorities in charge of evacuating the dispaced civilians report 200,000.

All of them from the zone of Hezbollla's range, all of them since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah severely escalated their rocket attacks on Israel. Kudos to Israel for giving a shit about their civilians, but that doesn't change the facts or the numbers. Nor does it change Israel's mission to return civilians to their homes.

Should the Lebanese not tire of assaults on their territory? They absolutely should, but the Lebanese army is powerless against the vastly superior Iran-funded Hezbollah forces who are in complete control of Lebanon's territories south of Sidon, if not the entire country. And I would venture a guess that Hezbollah forces are not particularly amenable to the wishes of the Lebanese people.

I am not particularly impressed by articles from the Arab press, but for argument's sake, are they talking about pagers arriving in Lebanon, or particular brands of pagers with particular specifications that are traceable to the exploding pagers in question? What is their methodology in determining the relevance of earlier pagers? I have no clue. Do they? Do you? And you are underestimating the Mossad. It is easy as pie to establish, as a non-specific contingency, a shell company somewhere in Hungary way in advance of a particular mission it may be used for. It is easy as pie to figure out how to use, say, enemy smart phones to gain access to information.The difficulty comes when Nasrallah gives orders to all Hezbollah operatives to ditch their smart phones and begins a search for a vendor of pagers to switch his entire operation to pagers. This is when the hypothetical Hungarian shell company gains purpose. Still, with sufficient connections to manufacturers, license providers and supply chains, which is rather easy to imagine Mossad would have, three weeks between receiving intelligence about Nasrallah's intentions and delivering 3000 pagers should be sufficient. I bet there is an outfit or three in Sri Lanka that would do it in a week, no questions asked. If they could do it with fake Rolex watches, putting explosive-laced circuit boards into plastic cases is a piece of cake. And FedEx could ship them all to the Hungarian shell company overnight, for delivery to Hezbollah buyers the next day.

You can believe it or not, as can I, but it is easily within the realm of possibility. And probability.

[moniss]

8. The Western media

reports 70,000 so apparently there are dueling claims. It should be noted that a huge number on the Lebanese side of the border have also evacuated from their homes. I have as much faith in the Arab Press as I do the Israeli Press. I have to weed out the slant in each one. But I note that much of what they do report is actually from Reuters and and others and is credited as such. Here is an excerpt from today from Al Arabiya:

"Israel played a role in manufacturing the pagers that exploded among Hezbollah operatives this week, ABC News reported, citing a US intelligence source.

The report said that this type of “supply chain interdiction” operation had been in the works for at least 15 years.

The CIA has been hesitant to employ such tactics due to the high risk of collateral damage to innocent people, the source added."

Here is the nearly identical word for word original report from ABC News from 9/19:

"Israel had a hand in the manufacturing of pagers that exploded on Hezbollah operatives this week, with this type of "supply chain interdiction" operation having been planned for at least 15 years, a U.S. intelligence source confirmed to ABC News.

The CIA has long been reluctant to employ this tactic because the risk to innocents was too high, the source said.

https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2024/09/20/israel-helped-manufacture-pagers-that-targeted-hezbollah-operatives-report

https://abcnews.go.com/International/israel-hand-manufacturing-pagers-exploded-lebanon-source/story?id=113851347

[Beastly Boy]

9. I read the ABC article you linked to,

and I found no material discrepancies between my idle speculations and their confidential source-based reporting, up to and including a contingency-oriented shell company in Hungary, in business of doing odd jobs that range from political consulting for NGOs to trading in commodities. It is possible that the company bought a license for manufacturing outdated electronics long ago (they are a dime a dozen) but obviously not manufacturing facilities. I don't see anything in the article that would further inform my understanding of what went on or is going on with the beepers. The phrase "this type of “supply chain interdiction” operation" is nebulous enough to assign any desired meaning to it.

Regardless of what the Western media are reporting, it is logical to assume that the people in charge of evacuating displaced civilians know better, and there is no equivalency in their respective reports. The civilians fleeing from the south of Lebanon should absolutely be noted, even if their numbers are unknown - this is not an exercise in tit for tat bean counting. But as I mentioned previously, they have no say in their fate Hezbollah is in full control of the south of the country, and they are not particularly concerned with the Lebanese civilians there. This is the most fundamental difference between them and the civilians in Israel, not their numbers.

[moniss]

10. 15 years versus only the time

since 10/7. Also do you mean to imply that the residents on the Israeli side of the border have control over the Israeli government? The numbers reported by the Western media are coming from sources like the UN agency assigned for that area etc. Why the discrepancy? I don't know. I doubt anybody does.

Also the history of Israeli intelligence planting explosives in communication devices is not new. All the way back to just after the horror in Munich and forward since then. Media has been acting like this is all brand new when it is not and it is just the scale which is unprecedented. It is also of note that the CIA could see the risks for civilian casualties but we're being lead to believe Israeli intelligence could not. Pretty doubtful. When called to the Security Council about the civilian deaths and casualties from the pager blasts the Israeli envoy said they will "do whatever it takes". So OK then that is the announcement to the world........ no limits to any conduct or action. While at the same time parties are claiming to not want a wider conflict.

US Deputy Envoy to the UN Robert Wood, apparently unaware of the concept of irony, decried Iran continuing to pour weapons and supplies into the conflict. Lady Irony was seen outside the UN weeping and lamenting "Does nobody wish to acknowledge I'm still here?" She was last seen being beaten and handcuffed by authorities and her whereabouts is unknown at this time but her close friends Lady Principle and Lady Consistency have gone on record that they are sticking by their long time friend and they note that the 3 Ladies together have a long history of having the last word over fools.