موقع دبيكا: إسرائيل تحذر حزب الله من أن ردها سيكون ساحقاً حتى في حال رد محدود من قبله/يديعوت أحرونوت: بلدة كريات شمونه الإسرائيلية الحدودية تحتفل بذكرى تأسيسها السبعين وتبعث برسالة إلى نصرالله/جيروساليم بوست: هل ينشر الجيش الإسرائيلي الدمى على طول الحدود اللبنانية؟/Israel to Hizballah: A crushing Israeli response will come – even for a limited reprisal/Israeli city on Lebanese border celebrates 70 years with message for Hezbollah/Is The IDF Deploying Dolls Along The Lebanese Border?
Israel to Hizballah: A crushing Israeli response will come – even for a “limited reprisal” موقع دبيكا: إسرائيل تحذر حزب الله من أن ردها سيكون ساحقاً حتى في حال رد محدود من قبله DEBKAfile/August 29/2019
Israeli city on Lebanese border celebrates 70 years with message for Hezbollah يديعوت أحرونوت/بلدة كريات شمونه الإسرائيلية الحدودية تحتفل بذكرى تأسيسها السبعين وتبعث برسالة إلى نصرالله Ahiya Raved/Ynetnews/August 29/2019
Is The IDF Deploying Dolls Along The Lebanese Border? جيروساليم بوست/هل ينشر الجيش الإسرائيلي الدمى على طول الحدود اللبنانية؟ Jerusalem Post/August 29/2019
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Israel to Hizballah: A crushing Israeli response will come – even for a “limited reprisal” موقع دبيكا: إسرائيل تحذر حزب الله من أن ردها سيكون ساحقاً حتى في حال رد محدود من قبله DEBKAfile/August 29/2019
Israel categorically rejected Hizballah’s proposal of a “limited reprisal” to close the books on the IDF’s weekend attacks in Beirut and East Lebanon. The offer, as a formula for averting a general flareup of hostilities, was made during an exchange of back-channel messages on Tuesday, Aug. 27. However, as DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources reveal here, it was flatly rejected by Israel who replied unequivocally that any Hizballah attack on a military or civilian target -“limited” or not – would elicit a crushing Israeli blow against its forces in Lebanon. For added muscle, the Israeli Air Force has been maintaining a round-the-clock presence over Lebanon, ready to strike Hizballah for any aggression without delay.
The leaders of Iran’s Lebanese surrogate must therefore take into account that even a single rocket fired against Israel would bring forth a deadly Israeli counterblow and they have no way of predicting where that blow will fall.
It is worth noting that not a single shot has been fired against the IAF aircraft over Lebanon, despite Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s threat on Sunday to shoot down every Israeli aerial intruder.
According to intelligence estimates, Hizballah will try hard to stage an attack in the coming three weeks to take advantage of the pre-election climate prevailing in Israel in the run-up to its Sept. 17 general election.
In line with the US-Israel alliance, President Donald Trump called on Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, when they met at the weekend G-7 summit in Biarritz, to do what he can to rein in the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and keep them from joining the violent campaign Iran and Hizballah are waging against Israel. El-Sisi responded by inviting a Hamas delegation to Cairo on Tuesday, Aug. 27 to warn them that Egyptian-Gaza links would be instantly severed if Hamas or Jihad struck Israel again.
DEBKAfile stands firmly by its report that the real object of Israel’s drone attack in Beirut’s Dahya district last Saturday was the targeted assassination of a senior Iran-appointed liaison officer – not a missile factory, as falsely reported by The London Times and presented as fact by domestic media.
Israeli city on Lebanese border celebrates 70 years with message for Hezbollah يديعوت أحرونوت/بلدة كريات شمونه الإسرائيلية الحدودية تحتفل بذكرى تأسيسها السبعين وتبعث برسالة إلى نصرالله Ahiya Raved/Ynetnews/August 29/2019
‘Nasrallah is the one who should be scared,’ say mayor of Kiryat Shmona, which took its share of rocket fire during the 2006 Second Lebanon War; local security officer laments lack of government funding to reinforce bomb shelters
Despite the growing security tensions in the north, thousands turned out Wednesday for the 70th anniversary celebrations for Kiryat Shmona, the small city on the Lebanese border that bears the scars of multiple rocket attacks. The central Hayarden Street was turned into a thoroughfare, and the city’s park hosted a huge event that included a concert by X Factor winner and city native Eden Ben Zaken. “Making sure her concert went without a hitch was the only stress we felt around here,” said the city’s mayor Avichai Stern. “We don’t feel any security pressures here,” he said. “I think there’s a bit of a confusion, (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah is the one who should be scared. This area is always on the verge of blowing up, but if we let that affect us we wouldn’t be able to live normally, let alone celebrate anything.” He added, however, that the event had been fully coordinated with the security forces. “If there were any substantial fear of something happening, I don’t believe the security forces would approve having such a public event outside,” Stern said.
The vigilance in the north is also present in Kiryat Shmona, which took a significant amount of rocket fire during the 2006 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah. Locals report more IDF vehicles on the roads, police stand ready to close roads near the border and the occasional buzz of drones can be heard overhead – but this state of readiness does not really drip into the everyday lives of the people of the Golan Heights and Upper Galilee. The heightened alert is in response to an IDF airstrike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital and an alleged Israeli drone attack on a Hezbollah communications center in Beirut, as well as the threats made by Hezbollah in response. There was also evidence of brewing tensions on the other side of the border when Lebanese soldiers shot at IDF drones on Wednesday. Many of the visitors to Kiryat Shmona share the positivity and optimism of the locals, as they visit natural sites and tourist attractions on the last week of the schools’ summer vacation.
One such visitor was Avi Einhorn from Beit Shemesh in central Israel, who said that he and his family were deliberately avoiding the news while on holiday. “We arrived here on Sunday, and the first thing we did was shut off the radio,” he said. “We don’t have any idea what this is all about. We’ll be home on Friday and then we’ll catch up on recent events. In the meantime we are hiking and having fun. I’m sure if there was any real threat the army would tell us to evacuate.” Local bike shop owner Assaf Deutch says recent events have not had any effect on the number of visitors, and estmiates that there are some 15-20% more visitors than last summer.
The main issue, he says, is the summer heat and not Nasrallah. Few of the visitors to the area have been traveling and camping, trusting that the security forces will protect them from any attacks. We have “God and the IDF to watch over us,” says one tourist. The local authorities are updated by the IDF about situational readiness, and the directions are clear: keep up your normal routine. The local council’s security officer Asaf Langleben says that the regional authority is always prepared to quickly shift from a daily routine to emergency footing. “This week was very good to us tourism-wise,” he says. “Current events will have no effect on the opening of the academic year in any way. We’re all practiced and ready, and at the start of the new school year we’ll go over security readiness and so on.” What does frustrate Langleben, however, is the indefinite delay of the NIS 5 billion the government was supposed to deliver to the local councils in order to reinforce local shelters and protect its citizens. “We don’t even have the 15 seconds those communities surrounding the Gaza Strip have,” he says. “If you don’t have a shelter at home, you’re basically totally unprotected. The only thing you can do in that situation is lay flat on the floor.”
Is The IDF Deploying Dolls Along The Lebanese Border? جيروساليم بوست/هل ينشر الجيش الإسرائيلي الدمى على طول الحدود اللبنانية؟ Jerusalem Post/August 29/2019
Hezbollah affiliated reporters mock Israel’s military after mannequins are seen in vehicles along the border.
With tensions at an all-time high along the Israel-Lebanon border, Hezbollah militants have been cracking jokes at the Israeli military, which has seemingly placed mannequins in military vehicles.
Pictures began circulating on Hezbollah-affiliated Twitter accounts early Thursday morning of seemingly abandoned vehicles, but taking a closer look at them in the morning, a figure is clearly seen. But it’s not an IDF soldier, but rather a mannequin in military uniform.
Ali Shoeib, a correspondent for Hezbollah’s al-Manar satellite TV tweeted that the deployment of dolls “is a joke” and bragged about the group’s capabilities, saying that “the enemy has yet to learn that he is facing a smart, professional, courageous and faithful group that can defeat them.”
Hezbollah’s Al-Ahed news site tweeted that, “fearing Hezbollah’s awaited response, Israeli occupation army places statues inside military vehicles on the border with Lebanon.”Ali Mortada, a reporter with pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV posted several pictures, including a selfie along the border.
“No Israelis on the borders. Where’s the army that can’t be defeated? They’re placing toys instead of real soldiers. Start distributing diapers because your day is nearing,” he tweeted, adding “By the way, Adraee, where are you tweeting from? From which shelter?”Mortada was referring to the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Maj. Avichai Adraee. In another tweet, Mortada mocked Adraee and the military saying “come out of your hole, where are you? I just crossed into Palestine. I will carry out an operation for Hezbollah.”
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit told The Jerusalem Post that they don’t comment on foreign reports.
The army’s Northern Command has been on high alert since Saturday night after the Israeli Air Force carried out strikes against a cell belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force in Syria, which was on its way to launch armed drones to attack targets in northern Israel.
Several hours later, two explosive-laden drones were seen in the skies of the Lebanese capital Beirut. One crashed after being pelted with stones while the other exploded, causing significant damage to Hezbollah’s precision missile project.
Israel is expecting a limited strike against military targets in northern Israel. Two sources close to Hezbollah were quoted by Reuters as saying that the Lebanese terror group is preparing a “calculated strike” against Israel.
A reaction “is being arranged in a way which wouldn’t lead to a war that neither Hezbollah nor Israel wants,” one of the sources said. “The direction now is for a calculated strike – but how matters develop, that’s another thing.”
The IDF began limiting traffic on roads along the Lebanese border Tuesday morning over fears of retaliation by Hezbollah, as tensions remain high following Israeli attacks.
“In light of an operational status assessment, it was decided that the movement of certain military vehicles on several roads would be possible only on the basis of individual approval and in accordance with the situational assessment of the situation,” the IDF said in a statement given to The Jerusalem Post.
The order was given by the military to all units in the area on Tuesday morning, restricting travel up to five kilometers from the border, and ordering all troops to carry weapons and wear protective equipment should their request to drive on the border roads be approved.
