Delivery times 2024-01-08 23:23
Netanyahu: “Hezbollah misjudged… the same situation as Hamas will occur”
Hezbollah announces: “We will fight without restrictions, rules or restrictions”
Smoke rises outside the southern Lebanese town of Aita al-Shaab due to an Israeli airstrike.
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(Cairo = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Sang-hoon = Israel, waging a war to eliminate Hamas in the Gaza Strip, runs the risk of all-out war with Hezbollah on the northern front.
According to Reuters, a senior leader of the Lebanese armed faction Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on the 8th (local time).
Several Lebanese security sources told Reuters that the Israeli army carried out an air strike on Majdal Selm in southern Lebanon that day, killing Wissam al-Tawil, one of the commanders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit.
He is the highest-ranking Hezbollah commander killed so far in the heated battle between the Israeli army and Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon border, following the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October last year.
“It was a very painful raid,” one source said, while another said he feared “the situation will now become more explosive.”
Another source told AFP: “The dead commander was the person who ran Hezbollah’s operations in southern Lebanon” and added: “He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle.”
The Radwan Unit is a special operations unit established by Hezbollah in 2008 to prepare for infiltration attacks in northern Israel.
Only this morning the Israeli military said in a briefing that it had struck a number of targets in Lebanon with fighter jets, including places where Hezbollah members were operating.
Israel, which focused on the Gaza Strip, said it did not want to escalate the war with Hezbollah, but every time it was attacked by Hezbollah, it launched a counterattack against Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon.
So far, around 180 people, including 135 Hezbollah members, have been killed in Lebanon, while 9 soldiers and 4 civilians have been killed in Israel.
On the 2nd, a drone attack hit the Hamas headquarters on the outskirts of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, killing six people, including Al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas political office, increasing the level of armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Amid the impending tension, a high-ranking commander was killed in an Israeli bombing that day, raising the possibility of Hezbollah waging an all-out war with Israel as in 2006.
Senior Western officials, including US Secretary of State Tony Blinken, hastily visited the Middle East, but were unable to find a solution.
Rather, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the northern border that day and said, “Hezbollah misjudged us in 2006 and is misjudging us even more now,” and added, “Hezbollah is seeing a strength, extraordinary unity and determination that will make us not hesitate for safety.” “It is,” he said.
“We want the problem to be solved without a large-scale military operation, but that won’t stop us,” he said. “We showed them together with our friends from the south (Hamas) an example of what will happen. Soon, the same will happen here.” “Something will happen,” she warned.
The Washington Post reported on the 7th that Israel had proposed a pre-emptive strike at the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, pointing to Hezbollah as the mastermind behind Hamas, but the US administration immediately dissuaded it.
Hezbollah will open training in Lebanon in May 2023
[AP 연합뉴스 자료사진. 재판매 및 DB 금지]
Hezbollah has already left open the possibility of all-out war with Israel.
Hezbollah vowed revenge in a statement soon after al-Arouri’s death, saying he had “his finger on the trigger.”
Hezbollah’s supreme leader, Hassan Nasrallah, also told Israel in a speech on the 3rd: “If the enemy wants to wage war on Lebanon, we will fight without any restrictions, rules or restrictions.”
If an all-out war with Hezbollah breaks out, Israel, which is fighting a war to eradicate Hamas, will have the enormous burden of fighting the war on two fronts in the south and north of the country.
While not comparable to the power of the Israeli army, which is equipped with cutting-edge weapons, experts say Hezbollah has combat power comparable to or superior to that of the Lebanese government army.
While the exact size of the force is unknown, the Dubai-based Gulf Research Institute estimates Hezbollah consists of 1,000 regular members and 6,000 to 10,000 volunteers.
Nicholas Blandford, a well-known Hezbollah expert, estimated the size of Hezbollah’s troops, including active and reserve forces, at 60,000 and the number of missiles it possesses at around 150,000.
For this reason, in the past, Israeli military officials have described Hezbollah as the largest guerrilla group in the world.
Furthermore, if Iran participates in an all-out war between both sides, there is a greater possibility that it will turn into a “fifth war in the Middle East”.
meolakim@yna.co.kr
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01/08/2024 11.23pm Sent
2024-01-08 14:23:35
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